Australian cricketer Voges felled by ball on head, rushed to hospital

03 May 2016 - 10:07 By ©The Daily Telegraph

Middlesex captain Adam Voges was taken to hospital on Monday after being hit on the back of the head by a ball thrown from the boundary.A ball, thrown by substitute fielder Ollie Rayner was missed by the Middlesex wicketkeeper, John Simpson, and struck Voges on the back of the head. He lay stretched out on the ground for some time before being helped off and taken to hospital . The incident occurred on the first day of Middlesex's championship match against Hampshire in Southampton.Last year the England and Wales Cricket Board introduced new guidelines for dealing with concussion injuries at the same time as it made the use of helmets mandatory for batsmen and close fielders within eight metres of the bat on the leg side.In terms of new rules - prompted in large part by the shocking death of Australian Test batsman Phil Hughes in a Sheffield Shield game last year - any player suffering from concussion is withdrawn from the match and sits out for a minimum of six days.."The physio thinks it is concussion but that will be shown up later," said Angus Fraser, the Middlesex director of cricket."It is a freak injury as such but when you see a cricket ball thrown around the field as much as it is you wonder why it has not happened more often before."He was not feeling very well in the dressing room so the feeling was that we should get him to hospital for a checkup"Voges is the third Middlesex batsman to suffer a head injury in less than a year. Last summer Eoin Morgan's season was ended when he was hit by a bouncer in a one-day international against Australia at Old Trafford, and Chris Rogers collapsed at the crease during a Test match at Lord's after suffering delayed concussion following a blow in the first innings against England.Rogers last week backed the new ECB safety-approved helmet with a fixed grille that caused controversy when England captain Alastair Cook refused to wear it in the opening round of the championship season...

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