The path back to cricket for Will Pucovski from his concussion hell is more complicated than imagined

A panel of concussion experts will convene next month to rule on Will Pucovski’s cricket future. It’s possible he may never play again, but that’s just the start of explaining his complicated battle.

Will Pucovski has reportedly suffered 13 concussions – and his future in cricket remains clouded. Picture: Getty

It is possible the panel of concussion experts being assembled to rule on Will Pucovski’s future next month may recommend he never plays cricket again.

But the tougher decision comes if they say he can.

When you read Pucovski has suffered 13 concussions, it is easy to automatically conclude that he must simply walk away and look after his long-term health.

That may end up being the outcome, but it was Pucovski who declared only last month that an undisclosed mental health issue – and not concussion – was in fact the biggest challenge threatening his career.

We don’t know the full story of what is plaguing the 26-year-old one-Test sensation, but we do know this: Pucovski’s is a highly complicated story that is absolutely nothing like the more cut and dried concussion cases of NRL stars Jake Friend and Boyd Cordner and AFL premiership winner Angus Brayshaw.

Will Pucovski has endured a painful battle with concussions in recent years. Picture: Getty

To start with, that number 13 is a misnomer, because the last time Pucovski’s career was at a crossroads in 2022 – a panel of the nation’s leading medical specialists found that only a fraction of the 11 concussions he thought he’d incurred to that point, were actually “true concussions.”

Not only that, but a handful of isolated blows to the helmet in cricket is not necessarily comparable to the CTE risks facing footballers who aside from their diagnosed concussions, are exposed to repetitive head contact through acts like tackling and being tackled.

Dr Rowena Mobbs is one of the leading neurologists in Australia, working with greats of the football and boxing world like Mario Fenech, Wally Lewis, Jeff Fenech and Steve Roach, and confirms it is these repetitive “sub-concussive” impacts which appear to be the primary cause of CTE.

“Concussions in cricket are usually one off events rather than the repeated sub concussion that is seen in football codes and other highly repetitive head impact sports,” Mobbs told this masthead.

Rugby league great Mario Fenech has had a well publicised battle relating to repeated concussions. Picture: Sam Ruttyn

“Sub concussion represents those brain injuries that are a microscopic injury and of no symptom consequence. They don’t generate typical headache, confusion, stars or any other concussion symptom.

“So the questions are different as far as a player’s wellbeing and outcome neurologically in these situations.

“The handful of concussions seen in a cricketer could be akin to a handful of concussions seen in a gymnast, an equestrian rider, a cyclist for example.

“Many of my patients will have had 100 or more concussions. They are 100 or more traumatic brain injuries. But sub concussions often number in the 1000s if not the tens of thousands across a career in a high contact, collision sport.

“Sub concussion has been shown internationally to be the main risk for CTE and the main correlate to earlier onset and more severe CTE depending on the accumulation of exposure or the magnitude a person’s brain has sustained.”

Pucovski reacts after being hit on the helmet while playing for Australia A. Picture: Getty

There are now numerous examples of footballers who, in one way or another, have received clear advice that they should hang up the boots due to the impacts of repeated concussion.

But that may not be Pucovski’s story.

Cricket is collectively praying that the panel of medical experts who are set to convene in a month’s time will once again deliver the verdict that his long-term health is not in question.

What a blessing that would be, but the decision that must be made on his cricketing future would in many ways only become harder still.

The fact Pucovski has likely only had a handful of “true concussions” in his career is yet to be fully explained, but this is where his private mental health issue has emerged as a primary factor in the troubling symptoms he has experienced over the years.

In terms of how it has manifested itself, the mental health struggle Pucovski has spoken about is linked, at least in part, to the head knocks he has received.

The true number of concussions Pucovski’s has suffered is not known. Picture: Getty

But that doesn’t mean quitting cricket is a simple fix, not when the game has been his life and sense of identity since he was a young boy.

Pucovski stressed in an interview prior to his most recent concussion episode, that his deep love and passion for cricket has never wavered and that for the first time he finally felt he had the tools to navigate the complex mental health challenges he had been facing, to the point he was confident he could still have a long Test career for Australia.

However, the 26-year-old – as intelligent, articulate and likeable as they come – may well have played his last match of elite cricket.

Pucovski has played one Test – scoring a half-century against India. Picture: Getty

Pucovski was frank when asked by respected broadcaster Adam White in a podcast interview earlier this year how close he had previously come to retiring.

“Yeah bloody close,” he said at the time.

“Very, very close.”

Pucovski ultimately resolved that he had “one more crack in me.”

But if he was close to pulling the pin then, where is he left now that he’s suffered a further two head knocks, the most recent troubling enough that it ended his planned stint in English county cricket?

On a practical level alone, the uncertainty and strain his repeated absences are putting on him, his teammates, opponents and those guiding Pucovski in Victorian and Australian cricket is close to unsustainable, if it’s not already.

As it stands he is due to come off contract with Victoria.

But if this is to be the end of the playing career of perhaps the brightest light in Australian cricket, it won’t necessarily be due to medical evidence.

And while that is of course in most senses an enormous relief, it’s also what makes Pucovski’s plight so desperately sad and difficult to predict.

Originally published as The path back to cricket for Will Pucovski from his concussion hell is more complicated than imagined