Kevin Pietersen has revealed that Surrey players were in tears in their dressing room as Australia’s Moises Henriques and Rory Burns received treatment following their sickening collision on the weekend.

Henriques and Burns were knocked unconscious as they collided while going for a chance in a Twenty20 match away to Sussex at Arundel on England’s south coast on Sunday.

Allrounder Henriques broke his jaw in three places after he was struck by Burns’s knee. Burns sustained head and facial injuries.

Both players needed oxygen treatment and three ambulances were called on to the outfield before the pair, who regained consciousness before leaving the ground, were taken to St Richard’s Hospital in nearby Chichester for further assessment.

Pietersen said on Monday that the horror at the scene unfolding before the players’ eyes was intensified by the shock death of former Surrey batsman Tom Maynard, killed by a London Underground train in 2012.

“I was stood at cow corner and you could see it happening before they collided,” Pietersen told the Daily Telegraph, for whom he is a columnist.

“I kept thinking one of the guys will call. Then you think one will stop but then bang, bang.

“It was absolutely sickening,” the exiled England batsman added.

“When those guys went down and did not move it hit some of our guys very hard. There was some raw emotion clearly visible which you can understand when the team has gone through the death of a team-mate.”

Henriques and Burns were treated on the field for 40 minutes before the umpires abandoned the match after they were taken to hospital, with Sussex 141 for seven in the 19th over.

“It was the right decision,” said Pietersen. “We had lost two of our players, a lot of players were crying in the dressing room and it is only a game of cricket.

“There is more to life than cricket and the correct decision was made.”

Surrey director of cricket Alec Stewart said Burns was close to being discharged but that Henriques would require further observation.

Henriques, 28, has represented Australia 13 times across all three international formats, most recently in a one-dayer against England at Hobart in January.