Rana suffers shoulder injury

Sussex seam bowler Rana Naved-ul-Hasan © Getty Images

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Sussex bowler Rana Naved suffered a serious shoulder injury which caused a 50-minute interruption to the LV County Championship Division One match against Durham at the Riverside.

Rana hurt himself diving to try to stop a four on the cover boundary, and it was soon clear he was in great pain.

The Pakistan fast bowler was unable to get to his feet and had to be carefully lifted onto at stretcher before being taken to hospital by ambulance. It was later confirmed Naved had dislocated, but not broken, his shoulder.

As Rana lay prone on the outfield near the pavilion in this crucial top-of-the-table fixture, his fellow players walked off - and stayed in the dressing room until just before 2.30pm, more than three-quarters of an hour after the injury.

"He has a bad dislocation of his shoulder," Sussex coach Mark Robinson said. “It was a fully committed diving stop by a very committed cricketer.

Mushtaq Ahmed was distressed by Rana's injury

“The crowd thought initially he was playing with them when he put his legs in the air, having a bit of fun.

"But he was obviously in a lot of pain - and it was distressing for the players, the amount of pain he was in.”

Compatriots and county team-mates Saqlain Mushtaq and Mushtaq Ahmed stayed with 29-year-old Rana while he received oxygen and pain-killers - after an ambulance had been driven across the ground to attend to him.

As he struggled to stay conscious, a hush descended over the crowd in front of the pavilion where he had fallen.

“They (Saqlain and Mushtaq) are especially close to him - and obviously from the language point of view, they needed to make sure Rana could understand the instructions,” Robinson explained.

“He was going in and out of consciousness, and it was tough to see one of your own in such discomfort.

“The doctor didn’t want to put the dislocation back in, because there is obviously the danger of complicating things in his bowling arm.

“He was obviously in a lot of discomfort, a lot of pain - and we were lucky we had a doctor on hand, and our physio did outstandingly well too.”