Former Australia skipper Steve Smith has been recovering well from the head injury which he suffered during the 4th day of the 2nd Ashes Test but the incident was enough sent goosebumps across the whole stadium and even the man himself was reminded of the tragic incident of Philip Hughes a few years ago. Smith after being hit on the head by Jofra Archer admitted that he feared the worst when he went down on the pitch.
Smith did return to bat and scored 12 more but he never looked in any comfort what so ever. “When the doc asked what did it feel like I said it felt like I had six beers last night and felt a little bit under the weather, without the six beers, unfortunately. That was the sort of feeling I got, that groggy feeling and that stuck around for a couple of days. Not a nice place to be in but these things happen and unfortunately missed what was a pretty amazing Test match,” Smith stated about that particular incident.
“I’m going well. Play the Derby game, get through that and pretty confident I’ll be right for the fourth Test match.”Nearly 5 years ago, Philip Hughes was struck on the same part of the neck and died four days later in the hospital.
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“I had a few things running through my head, particularly where I got hit, just a bit of past came up if you know what I mean from a few years ago. That was probably the first thing I thought about then I was like ‘I’m OK here’ and I was alright. I was a little bit sad, but I was alright mentally for the rest of that afternoon. I felt pretty good, passed all my tests and was able to go and bat and then it wasn’t until later that evening that it hit me,” he said.
There was debate surrounding the fact that whether Smith should have returned to bat after copping with such a blow on the head. Even Aussie coach Justin Langer stated that he asked Smith several things before allowing him to go out to bat again.
“That’s a difficult question because as we’ve seen this series there’s been so many head knocks already. Marnus Labuschagne has been hit a few times, Jos Buttler got hit at one point, Stokesy’s been hit. If you’re ruling people out from just hits every now and again, we won’t have a game,” he said.
“You’ve obviously got to take the advice of the doctor and how you’re feeling and at that point in time I was feeling fine. I wanted to go out like any other player would want to go out and try and help their team and you’ve got to take the advice of your medical staff. Had he told me that this isn’t the right thing to do then that’s fine, we cop that on the chin and you get on with things. But he was comfortable and I was comfortable and that was it, just move on and play.”
