LONDON, Sept 2: An English village cricketer kept on batting through despite a heart attack because he stood to make his first half-century of the season.

Unfortunately, Jim Young was still on 48 when he ran out of partners.

An ambulance then took him to hospital in Harlow, Essex, and later, to a specialist unit at St Bartholomew's hospital in London where he had surgery, The Daily Telegraph said.

Now back home in Westmill, Hertfordshire, 57-year-old young admitted: “I think I was a bit of an idiot really. I should have stopped straight away because it could have finished me off there and then.”

He was on 32 as he dropped to his knees and said he suspected he was having an angina attack.—Agencies