More than a year after he retired from international cricket due to concussion struggles, former Australian cricketer Will Pucovski has taken legal action against his childhood school Brighton Grammar School alleging that it mishandled his first concussion-related incident in 2014 which led to repeated concussion struggles throughout his career. The 28-year-old Pucovski, who retired last year on the basis of recommendations made by a panel of medical experts, only played in one Test in his career and has now launched legal action against the private school in Australia.

According to Sydney Morning Herald, Pucovski has approached the court through his lawyers and has alleged that his school coach Alex Sylvan organised a vigorous training session in May 2024 and the session led to the first concussion suffered by the player.

“Coach Alex Sylvan said words to the effect that training would be aggressive and physical due to the team’s unacceptably weak performance in the weekend’s game. Before the training drill commenced, Mr Sylvan again instructed and directed the students to be aggressively physical with each other, and to ‘go in hard’ against each other, and the plaintiff (Pucovski) understood the intention of the coach was that players would show aggression towards each other and that they deserved physical pain. In the training drill, players aggressively attacked the ball and teammates. During the training drill, the plaintiff was sling-tackled in a rotational and vigorous manner, which caused his head (at the left temple) to collide with the knee of another student,” the writ submitted by Pucovski read as reported by Sydney Morning Herald.

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Pucovski was first named in the Australian team in 2019 before he made his debut against India at Sydney for Australia in 2021. The 28-year-old played knocks of 62 and 10 in before he was ruled out of his maiden Test match after a shoulder injury. The Victorian batsman played in 36 First Class matches amassing 2,350 runs and last played in Sheffield Shield in 2024, when he suffered another concussion, the 13th such instance in his career, and did not play in any match before he announced his retirement in 2025 post the recommendations made by a panel of medical experts.

The writ alleges that the batsman experienced head pain and other symptoms in the following days of the incident in 2014 and was told that he had a concussion by a doctor at Nepean Family Medical Centre. The writ also alleged that Pucovski was later approached by Sylvan to be a runner for the school’s net football match and the youngster complied of more headaches post the game followed by him being taken to Cabrini Hospital in Malvern and forced to stay at home for the next six weeks followed by a visit to neurologist Gavin Davis.

The former Australian batsman had worked as head coach of Melbourne Cricket Club as well as doing commentary work for Channel 7. Earlier in July, Pucovski had shared about the incident. “I got ‘foggy eyes. I’m like ‘I can’t see’, thinking I was just tired or fatigued or something, which turned out to be from the concussion. The next couple of days I just started to feel more sick, the headaches got worse and worse. Five or six days later I started feeling really, really sick and mum and dad took me to hospital. The mental health challenges started pretty quickly,” Pucovski had said during Lord’s Taverners function in July.

Brighton Grammar issued a statement regarding the legal battle. “I can confirm that Alex Sylvan is a highly regarded and experienced teacher at Brighton Grammar School. Beyond that, given the matter is the subject to legal proceedings, Brighton Grammar School will not be making any further comment.” Brighton Grammar headmaster Ross Featherston said in a statement.