Australian Women’s National Cricket Team player Ashleigh Gardner has confirmed that they have banned pre-match activity with the Vortex ball. He said they will not practice with the Vortex ball for the entire tour where they lock horns with the New Zealand Women’s National Cricket Team.
This comes after Ashleigh Gardner suffered a head injury against the first T20I New Zealand Women’s national cricket team. The versatile athlete collided with teammate Georgia Wareham as she attempted to catch a soft Vortex ball during warm-ups for practice.
At first it didn’t seem serious to Ashley Gardner because she was laughing all the way through, but after that she left the floor in tears. There was even a possibility of a concussion, but thankfully it didn’t happen. If that happens, it would be the eighth concussion of his career.
Although Ashleigh Gardner’s injury was not too serious, she was ruled unfit to play in the first T20I against the New Zealand Women’s National Cricket Team. But to his credit, he returned to action for the second game and came up with a match-winning effort.
Gardner, who consulted a neuropsychologist in 2018 after suffering four concussions in 20 months, played a crucial role for his team in the second T20I. The all-rounder picked three wickets and conceded just 16 runs, helping the Australian Women’s National Cricket Team record a 29-run win over the opposition.
Speaking about the Vortex incident, Ashleigh Gardner said it was strange for her to suffer such an injury. But he admitted that he’s feeling fine now and they won’t be doing Vortex training for the rest of the tour. Speaking to ESPNCricinfo, he explained:
“It was nice to get back out there after the weird thing, the head collision in the warm-up. It was weird wrapping my head around it, but I’ve felt really good the last couple of days. I’ve had a lot of head knocks in the past, I know when I’m concussed and when I’m not.”
Still a lot in the tank – Ashley Gardner
Ashleigh Gardner has stressed that Australia must improve a lot before they go to the 2024 T20 World Cup. He noted that the conditions in the UAE will be unknown for them, but their confidence in the team is high. Talking about his performance in the first two T20Is, he explained:
“There’s still a lot in the tank; hopefully in this last game, if we bat first, we can get a big result on the board. Sutherland at eight is pretty ridiculous. Going into conditions like Dubai, we haven’t done that. We’ve played there before (for Australia), so and we are going into the unknown.
“But knowing that we have a defendable total of 140, we know that our bowling unit is good enough to restrict them. The skill we had, in all directions … was quite clinical,” he said.
