Australia shelves pre-game ball game that caused scary collision between two players

Injuries from vigorous ball games in the warm-up aren’t new to international cricket, but the latest one has been enough to cause a change.

The pre-game activity that almost knocked Ash Gardner’s T20 World Cup for six has been banned for the immediate future to avoid any chance of a similar incident that forced her out of the opening game against New Zealand.

Gardner returned with a player-of-the-match performance in the second game in Mackay, confident she was not impacted at all by the scary collision with teammate Georgia Wareham before the opening match.

The “vortex” ball throwing game had been part of the warm-up and the two players were both left stunned and Gardner in tears after their heads collided.

It was scariest for Gardner, the reigning Belinda Clark Award winner, who saw a neuropsychologist in 2018 after suffering four concussions in the space of 20 months.

But while she was put into concussion protocols, Gardner was confident she wasn’t concussed, having passed her test, but declared the pre-game routine would be changed.

“That’s the end of the vortex for the rest of the tour,” she said after snaring 3-16 in the win that gave Australia a 2-0 lead in the series, the final one before Australia heads to the T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates in October.

Ash Gardner is out due to concussion protocols...

After this head clash with Georgia Wareham in a warm up game 😮#AUSvNZpic.twitter.com/fN9tNWiJoc

— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) September 19, 2024

“It’s been nice to get back out there after a weird occasion.

“It was weird to wrap my head around, but I’ve felt really good the last couple of days.

“I’ve had a lot of head knocks in the past; I know when I am concussed and when I’m not.”

Gardner made 18 with the bat as well as Australia recorded their worst batting collapse in T20 cricket, losing their last seven wickets for 28.

But the total of 142 proved more than enough thanks to Australia’s bowlers, including Gardner, with an expectation of improvement in the final game on Tuesday before flying to the UAE.

“There’s still a lot left in the tank; hopefully, in this last game if we do bat first we can put a massive total on the board,” she said.

“Going into conditions like Dubai, we haven’t played there before (for Australia), so we’re kind of going into the unknown a little bit.

“But knowing we have a defendable total like 140, we know our bowling unit is good enough to restrict them

“The skill we possess, in all facets … it was pretty clinical.”

Originally published as Australia shelves pre-game ball game that caused scary collision between two players