Talented, but equally unlucky with injuries, Will Pucovski’s cricketing summer is going down the drain once again as his dreams of playing consistently at the highest level are fading away because of his concussion issues.
Commenting after the announcement of the Australian squad for the first two Tests of the Ashes 2021-22, Chris Rogers, Pucovski’s state team Victoria’s head coach said, “I can’t say that (he won’t play in the Ashes series) but equally, I can’t see how he can now get the opportunity to show that he’s ready to go to play in the Test matches.”
Reasoning as to why he feels that the 23-year-old Victoria player won’t be able to play this summer, the former Austral opener said, “To be playing club cricket and to be picked out of club cricket, I’d probably be pretty surprised, as a lot of people would. I think even Will understands that as well.”
“I don’t have a crystal ball with that but I think it’s probably going to be challenging for him to play Test cricket this summer,” he added.
Pucovski, who suffered from yet another concussion in September this year is said to have been recovering well, but Rogers said that that it will still take some time for him to be in proper playing conditions and represent Victoria in Sheffield Shield once again.
“We’ll give him some time now - there’s a bit of a break after this (Shield) game - and we can look into how we perhaps support him through and almost get him ready for the block after the BBL. (Our medical team) keep saying his history is actually that it takes him quite a long time to recover from a few of these blows,” Rogers said.
Now it would be interesting to see by what time Pucovski, who has six hundreds, which include two double hundreds to his name and an average of more than 50 in just 24 First-Class games, recovers from his yet another concussion. He last played competitive cricket in early January this year against India in Sydney Test.