Australia's Will Pucovski set to retire due to medical reasons at 26

Australian cricketer Will Pucovski’s career has reportedly come to an unfortunate early end due to medical reasons.

According to Nine News, the 26-year-old will retire following a recommendation from a panel of medical experts.

Pucovski has endured a series of head injuries, with the latest concussion in March proving to be the final straw.

However, it is not just concussions that have led to Pucovski’s downfall. A previous medical panel in 2022 found that some of Pucovski’s head injuries were “not true concussions” and were more likely related to stress or trauma responses.

The former batting prodigy burst into the national spotlight when he was named in the January 2019 Test squad before his 21st birthday and then played his one and only Test against India at the SCG.

Pucovski scored 62 and 10, opening the batting alongside David Warner, but suffered a shoulder injury during the match, which sidelined him for some six months.

From 36 first-class matches, Pucovski scored 2,350 runs at 45.19 with seven hundreds. He made 62 and 10 in his only Test match, against India at Sydney in 2020/21. He remains a rare Australian international cricketer to have never played T20 cricket since the inception of the BBL, though he did receive a contract with the Melbourne Stars in 2020/21.

There was hope that he would be able to string together a long, concussion-free run of form as Australia sought a long-term replacement at the top of the order, but it was not to be.

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