Understanding 「45年間活躍したクリケット選手の手どうなってんだ…」

Question

From a tweet about the hands of a long-time cricket player:

45年間活躍したクリケット選手の手どうなってんだ…

Is this sentence parsed as

(45年間活躍したクリケット選手の手)どうなってんだ…

Where (45年間活躍したクリケット選手の手) is directly modifying どう?

Grammatically, I understand what どうなってんだ means as a complete clause, and I understand what 45年間活躍したクリケット選手の手 means as a complete clause (at least if we tack on an implicit copula at the end), but when they're placed together like this it looks almost as if it's two separate clauses smashed together?

Answer 1

There are many instances where particles are omitted and implied, this is one of those cases and the implied particle is は; the first part of the sentence isn't modifying anything, it is rather the topic:

45年間活躍したクリケット選手の手はどうなってんだ・・・