Cricket player feared he 'killed his dad' after hitting him with ball during match

Andy Barnard (right) with his dad Richard Barnard. Credit: Andy Barnard

A cricket player feared he'd "killed his own dad" after hitting him with a ball during a county league game in Gloucestershire.

Andy Barnard, who is chair of Painswick Cricket Club, was playing for the 2nd team in their away match to Oakridge on Saturday 11 May when the incident happened.

Midway through the game, Andy hit the ball and it soared over the boundary.

Andy said: "Third ball came down, I caught it quite well and it went sailing towards the pavilion. The ball dipped, and landed on what looked like my dad's head.

"From where I was, 40-50 metres away, it looked really serious. He went straight down, and it was all a little bit frightening for a few seconds.

"I threw all my stuff on the floor and raced over to see if he was okay. Luckily a couple of our experiences heads helped him to the ground and made sure he was okay."

The ball landed on Mac's neck, between his shoulder blades.

Andy said: "I’m not particularly quick these days between the wickets but I absolutely flew off the pitch.

"It was pretty scary thinking that I might have killed my own dad.

“Fortunately he did not lose consciousness and although he was left with a big bruise, he was able to see the funny side of it all. Thank the lord he's okay.

“He’s now in his mid 70s and been involved with cricket all his life, he absolutely loves the sport and was playing right up until before covid."

According to Andy, Mac is "quite stoic" so once everything had calmed down, he carried on scoring the match, and attended a match on the Sunday too.

Despite the commotion, they did count the six from Andy, and Painswick went on to win the match. Although later in the day he did nearly hit someone else sat on a bench watching after hitting his dad.

Andy said "I'm not really known as a big hitter. So to hit two, and hit one person and nearly hit another, made it even worse."

They have a home match on Saturday 18 May which Mac will be scoring. Andy said: "Luckily where the pitch is at home, it will be much harder to hit him."