Car crash cricketer Billy Cookson plays first shots

An amateur cricketer who was seriously injured in a head-on crash with a bus in Australia has picked up a bat for the first time since the collision.

Billy Cookson, 23, suffered punctured lungs and a torn liver, broke a leg and both ankles and shattered his right arm in the crash in October.

He had travelled to Melbourne to play cricket and was working as a delivery driver when the accident happened.

He used the cricket bat one-handed during a physiotherapy session.

Mr Cookson, from Chippenham in Wiltshire, said he was now "settling into independent life again", having left hospital in January.

Billy Cookson was in hospital for several months following the crash

"I'm getting back to being in my one-bed apartment and doing things for myself like cleaning and washing," he said.

"It's really good to be back on my own two feet and doing things that are a little more normal than I previously felt in hospital."

He said he had been walking just under a mile (1.6km) to physio sessions each day, where he had picked up a cricket bat for the first time.

"I feel like I could play a game - maybe not at the level I was at before - but I almost feel I could go and play with my dad," he said.

Mr Cookson has had operations on his elbow and leg since the crash.

Doctors thought he would be in hospital for up to eight months but he got out in four.

Mr Cookson had been playing as an overseas cricketer for Kyabram Cricket Club but on his first day as a tools delivery driver his pick-up truck collided with a bus.

He was taken to hospital and placed into an induced coma after undergoing surgery.