A bowling coach in England has demanded 200,000 pounds (around ₹2.6 crore) from a cricket board after he accused it of negligence that resulted in him picking up several injuries on the job.
57-year-old Andrew Woodward, a former Derbyshire bowler, also claimed that because of the injuries he picked up, he suffered on other fronts too. That he has not been mentally sound post the accident.
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The matter is now in court. The incident happened in early 2023 when Woodward had to lug a heavy bowling machine for an Under-12 session at Ryde School on the Isle of Wight, an expensive private school which can cost a pupil up to 45,000 pounds a year. In the process, he lost control of the heavy machinery and picked up injuries in his lower back, neck and left knee. He had to be taken to a nearby hospital.
The Isle of Wight Cricket Board has admitted that they were negligent in not providing a wheelie trolley but strongly contested that the injuries were ‘that serious’ as described by Woodward’s team. That his post-injury trauma couldn’t have been because of those injuries.
Sounds horrible!
Woodward’s barrister Mark Lomas described what exactly happened that fateful day. “He lifted the box by the handles and rested its weight on his thighs, leaning back to counterbalance the size and weight of the box, and walked it, resting on his thighs, across the sports hall but with the lower end of the box clear of the floor,” the Independent reported him as saying.
“He manoeuvred the bowling machine in its box towards the required location, by raising the box upright on its shortest side and walking it across the floor when he lost his balance and fell backwards onto the floor, the equipment landing on top of him, whereby he suffered significant injury.”
Woodward was given an England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) coach honour in 2022 for his role in the promotion of cricket on the Isle of Wight. Lomas insisted it was the horrible incident that did for Woodward, who, prior to the horrific incident, was on the way up the ladder of success.
“The claimant worked as a cricket and sports coach, including coaching cricket at an elite level, and in related cricketing activity, including umpiring matches.
“He has been unable to continue with his coaching and related activities as before because of the symptoms of his injury and he has suffered a substantial loss of income, which continues,” he added.