Over the years, the gentlemen’s game has witnessed several players succumbing to fatal injuries they suffered on cricket field. In fact, the earliest reported death on a field was way back in 1624 when an English cricketer died. So far, there have been over ten deaths due to on-field injuries/incidents in the sport. Phil Hughes, Raman Lamba, Zulfiqar Bhatti , Ian Folley – the list is quite long.
The governing bodies have tried their best to minimise the fatal injuries as much as possible with precautionary measures. However, the same cannot be said about the game at the grass-root level. And recently an young man died after suffering a fatal condition on the field.
On Sunday, a 24-year-old cricketer suffered “chest pain” while playing in a local tennis ball cricket tournament. He was taken to a private hospital for treatment where he later died. One of the doctors of the hospital confirmed the news, revealing that the patient was brought in the hospital after complaining of chest pain and later suffered a cardiac arrest. The deceased has been identified Vaibhav Kesarkar.
“He (Kesarkar) suffered chest pain while playing cricket and was brought to our hospital. Later, he suffered a cardiac arrest and was declared dead.
“His body was handed back to his family. It was a natural death,” said Dr Satyen Bhavsar, who owns the Bhavsar Hospital where the cricketer was rushed to from the playground.
Dr Bhasvar also informed that the man was brought to the hospital around noon. The deceased reportedly used to play tennis ball cricket tournaments regularly.