Bancroft suffers accident and misses Sheffield final against Tasmania

Ahead of Thursday’s Sheffield final against Tasmania at the WACA, Australia batsman Cameron Bancroft fell off his bike and was hospitalized and ruled out of the match. Western Australia skipper Sam Whiteman said Bancroft was doing OK and had been discharged from hospital. Furthermore, he also talked about the condition of the cricketer, saying that the 31-year-old cricketer has a lot of scratches on his body. Bancroft’s loss is a huge blow to Western Australia as he was the team’s second-highest run-scorer in the tournament. The score in the opener was 778 with an average of 48.62.

“[I’m] Very sad but happy to hear he is okay and out of the hospital. I think it’s lucky it didn’t get worse. He had many scratches on his body. Hopefully we’ll see him at WACA this week, I know he’s sad to miss it but he’ll see him on the team. He’s done a lot of the heavy lifting this year to get us to the finals,” Whiteman told reporters on Wednesday.

In Bancroft’s absence, Darcy Short will start the game, with Jayden Goodwin likely to be promoted to third. Teague Wiley is likely to replace Bancroft in the lineup.

Short has played just one Shield game this season, batting 49 times at No. 5 against Queensland at a tough WACA ground earlier this month.

Goodwin, the son of former Zimbabwe Test batsman Murray Goodwin, has had an outstanding season, scoring a first-class hundred against Queensland to cement his place as Western Australia’s The status of the No. 3 golfer. He also shot 85 in challenging batting conditions against Tasmania at Bellerive Oval last month.

Willie has not played in a Shield match since early February and has struggled with an average of 17.80 in six games this season. He started the season in third place with a brave 94 off 251 deliveries, with the Victorians in full attack, but his performances gradually faded and he failed to move down the order.

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