Cricket player: ‘Injuries are more of a burden than my deafness’

An injured hamstring is a much bigger burden than being deaf, says cricket fast bowler Mathew Fisher.

Fisher, an England Under 19 athlete who has single-sided hearing loss, told the Daily Mail that his “troublesome left hamstring has been a far greater handicap to his sporting ambitions than deafness.”

“I am nearly deaf in my left ear. I have about 5 percent hearing,” he told the Daily Mail. “’I’m more worried about the hamstrings by a mile. I maybe struggled hearing at school but it just meant telling the teachers so they knew, and it has never really been a problem.”

“I’m more worried about the hamstrings by a mile.”

Fisher says he doesn’t wear a hearing aid for his unilateral hearing loss.

Approximately 1 out of every 10,000 children is born with UHL, and nearly 3% of school-age children have UHL, according to ASHA.

“Children with UHL are at higher risk for having academic, speech-language, and social-emotional difficulties than their normal hearing peers,” according to ASHA. “This may be because UHL is often not identified, and the children do not receive intervention.”

Read more: The smart solution for single-sided hearing.

Causes of unilateral hearing loss include genetics, ear infections, head injuries, exposure to loud noise, traumatic brain injury, or ear abnormality – such as a cholesteatoma, as in Fisher’s case.

Fisher is currently focusing on Friday’s return as captain for England Under 19 tour of India, according to the Daily Mail.

Read the full story on DailyMail.co.uk