Cricket ball in face gives teen taste of corporate life

CANTEBURY - Tess O’Rourke hopes she will be able to cover the scar from her injury with makeup when she is performing.

Tess O’Rourke was not a cricket fan before Sunday - and she certainly isn’t now.

But the 18-year-old still has her sense of humour despite being taken to hospital just minutes after arriving at the Canterbury Wizards’ Twenty20 game against the Auckland Aces on Sunday at QEII Park, where she was hit in the face by a Colin de Grandhomme six.

“I wasn’t watching. I had my face turned to the side, then bang.”

Her nose was broken in at least two places and she spent seven hours at Christchurch Hospital. She needed 12 stitches.

“I never even liked cricket. I only went because I was bored and had nothing else to do,” she said.

O’Rourke was at the game with boyfriend Dave Sutherland and his friend, Luke Di Somma, but she said they were of little help.Apparently they said ‘look out’, but I’m not so sure,” she said.

“They should have caught it, but they said the ball was white and they lost it in the clouds or something,” she said.

After finishing at Villa Maria College this year, O’Rourke was offered a place at the ED5 International school for performing arts as a dancer.

“Looks are kind of important in this industry and I’ll have a scar apparently, but I’ll hopefully be able to cover it up with makeup.”

She would go back to another cricket game only if she was in a corporate box.

The Press contacted the Canterbury Cricket Association, which will invite O’Rourke to this Sunday’s game as its guest - in a corporate box.

Asked if she had a message for de Grandhomme, O’Rourke cheekily said her younger brother Matt was keen on a cricket helmet for Christmas if he had a spare.

“I can only laugh now, but it hurt like a bitch at the time,” she said.

“My friends said if it was to happen to anyone, it would happen to me. I think it’s because I’m small and ginger.” (ANI)