On the fourth day of the second Ashes Test at Lord’s, the former Australian skipper Steve Smith was knocked down by a nasty bouncer from England pacer Jofra Archer. Smith was forced to retire hurt and walk-off the field for further medical assessments.
The incident occurred on the 77th over when Smith was batting on a score of 80 runs from 152 balls. A 92.4 mph bouncer struck Smith on the neck just below the left ear knocking him down.
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In a recent interview with Sky Sports, the speedster expressed his thoughts about the incident. Jofra said, “It’s never a nice sight,
“I honestly don’t know what I was thinking at the time, seeing someone go down, you don’t ever want to see anyone carried off on a stretcher, or you don’t want to see them missing a day, or a game, especially with what happened a few years ago as well.”
Back in 2014, Australian cricketer Phillip Hughes suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage after being hit by a bouncer on his neck, causing his death.
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Jofra did attract some criticism on social media for his behavior after the incident as he walked away and didn’t check on Smith.
Bouncers are a part & parcel of the game but whenever a bowler hits a batsman on the head and he falls, courtesy requires that the bowler must go & check on him. It was not nice of Archer to just walk away while Smith was in pain. I was always the first one to run to the batsman.
— Shoaib Akhtar (@shoaib100mph) August 18, 2019
