David Warner reunited with net bowler struck on head in touching moment

Plaha, a 22-year-old seamer, was struck on the head by a stroke from Warner, leading to a halt in Australia’s training session

Before heading out to the middle to join Aaron Finch in opening the batting for Australia against Sri Lanka at The Oval, David Warner had some business to tend to.

The left-hander was reunited with Jaykishan Plaha, the net bowler felled by his straight drive when Australia practiced at the ground before their clash with India last Sunday.

Plaha, a 22-year-old seamer, was struck on the head by a blow from Warner, leading to a pause in Australia’s training.

The session was temporarily stopped for close to 20 minutes while the bowler received treatment from medical staff, before he was carried off the ground on a stretcher and taken to hospital for a precautionary check.

Last week, Jaykishan Plaha was hit on the head by a David Warner drive during an Australia training session.

Today, Warner met both Jaykishan and his mum before play, presented Jaykishan with an Australia shirt and wished him a speedy recovery 👏 ✊ pic.twitter.com/ZNrqnFuuau

— Cricket World Cup (@cricketworldcup) June 15, 2019

However, the pair met up on Saturday morning, sharing an embrace before Warner presented Plaha with his World Cup match shirt from his previous game, signed by the batsman and his Australian teammates.

“Hopefully, I’ll be back on the field soon,” Plaha said. “My dream is to become a professional cricketer, so hopefully the journey starts climbing up again. I’ve got this time to take out now to just rest and recover and enjoy the World Cup.”

At the time of the incident, Finch admitted: “Dave was obviously pretty shaken up, no doubt. It was a decent hit to the head. Yeah, hopefully everything keeps going well for the youngster. It was tough to watch.”

Plaha spent four nights at St Thomas’ Hospital and, while CT scans cleared him of any serious injury, it was two days before he was able to walk again.

^{Warner was visibly shaken by the incident.}

“It was just an unfortunate accident,” Warner said after their meeting. “We're extremely grateful for the guys coming in and bowling to us – workloads can stop us facing our own bowlers sometimes.

"To come in and roll the arm over and unfortunately get hit was sad, it was a real shock to us.

“Now he's recovering, back on his feet and said he'll be bowling again in about six weeks.

“We're going to get him around the group and I think he's coming to the Lord's game (against England) as well.”

Plaha wrote after his discharge from hospital: “Just want to thank god that I’m still here breathing, thank you to all the people around the world for the prays and wishes, thanks to all the staff at Surrey , ICC, Cricket [Australia], and St Thomas Hospital for making me feel like a special person.”

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