'Nagas Was Very Lucky'

(reprinted from TRINIDAD EXPRESS)

West Indies spin bowler Mahendra Naga-mootoo is recovering after sustaining injuries in a vehicular accident in Guyana last Friday.

The 26-year-old Nagamootoo was resting comfortably when members of his family and fellow West Indies cricketer, Jamaican Ricardo Powell, visited him at the St Clair Medical Centre.

His mother Mavis Nagamootoo accompanied her son from Guyana and was joined by the player?s brother Vishal ? the Guyana wicket-keeper ? and wife Pinky. Vishal felt his brother was very lucky to escape without greater injury.

?If you see the bus which he was in, you would think that everyone had died. It was so twisted you wouldn?t believe.?

Despite the state of the wreckage, Vishal reported that no one else was hurt. His brother was asleep at the time of the accident. Vishal had a similar accident earlier in the year which kept him out of the 2002 Busta Cup.

Mavis said attending physician Dr Terry Ali had given a good prognosis as her son had not sustained any broken bones. She said Ali reported that Nagamootoo had suffered a bruised rib, along with facial injuries.

?They were very concerned about the cut on his head in Guyana,? she said.

The leg-spinner, who played in the first Test of the current series against India, took several stitches on his right temple and was put in a neck brace as a precautionary measure.

He also has swelling around his right eye and was unable to speak much because of a cut on his tongue.

Powell and his wife were in Trinidad for a wedding and visited Nagamootoo after hearing of the incident.

* SOURCE:Trinidad Express.