Helmets

[The_Reaper]

Far out I completely forgot about that one, the first one that came to my mind was a West Indies I think player copping one on the back of the helmet from Brett Lee, was short pitched but stayed down, he went to duck and instead copped it in the head.

was it wavell hinds? he got hit on the back of his head, afterwards, he takes it off, looks at the helmet, scratches his head, puts the helmet back on & takes his batting stance ready to face up again
it may have been facing magrath though?

Chanderpaul

Ended up batting on and scoring a century.

Just goes to show the fine line between being dazed for a moment and dying.

 

[zimma]

Chanderpaul

Ended up batting on and scoring a century.

Just goes to show the fine line between being dazed for a moment and dying.

Ah you beat me to what I added to my post, that's what I get for posting while waiting to respawn... Yeah crazy to think what could've happened if it was an inch lower.

 

[The Passenger]

That Ricky Ponting one I vaguely remember - Why was he not wearing a helmet? Was season? Just seems so unfathomable these days to a medium pacer or quicker.

 

[The_Reaper]

That Ricky Ponting one I vaguely remember - Why was he not wearing a helmet? Was season? Just seems so unfathomable these days to a medium pacer or quicker.

Too hot

 

[rdhopkins2]

First and foremost this is about Hughes and his family right now.

In time there will be debate about helmets, bouncers, cricket ball materials etc. People are still extremely raw. Let's not overreact but think it through.

 

[2Knights]

After a few days reflection, some thoughts -

1. Several former internationals (including some from the pre-helmet era), Geoff Boycott, Mike Atherton, Ian Chappell and others, have noted the loss of fear and change of technique that came with helmets. It seems to me this has been a gradual process. More batsmen are being hit on the head now than in the era immediately following helmet introduction.

2. Calls to improve helmet safety are missing the point & probably futile. Only a Ned Kelly helmet would have saved Phil Hughes. The primary defence against short-pitched bowling is active defence. Don't get hit! There is only so much protection you can design into a helmet before it starts interfering with head movement or sight of the ball.

3. I would prefer to see less short-pitched bowling against tail-enders, especially the bunnies. I'm not sure if this is best achieved by further regulation or more pro-active umpiring. Batsmen who can't bat don't deserve short-pitched stuff.

4. Some batting practices need to be eradicated, especially turning the head away from short-pitched deliveries. This needs to be coached out of the game at all levels.

 

[Carbine Chaos]

3. I would prefer to see less short-pitched bowling against tail-enders, especially the bunnies. I'm not sure if this is best achieved by further regulation or more pro-active umpiring. Batsmen who can't bat don't deserve short-pitched stuff.

Impossible to do without opening up so, so many grey areas for sides (especially weaker teams) to exploit.

The game is fine as it is.

 

[Registered User]

Yeah, a couple of people of radio have suggested that the "bowling bouncers at tail-enders" rule might be tightened a little.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Impossible to do without opening up so, so many grey areas for sides (especially weaker teams) to exploit.

The game is fine as it is.

Yes, who would determine who is classified as a genuine bunny? I never thought Glenn McGrath could bat, but he made a Test 50. Look at Stuart Broad. Definitely very uncomfortable against short bowling, but the moment he faces bowlers who pitch it up, he's a very good player. If you weren't allowed to bowl short at Broad, he'd make 100s.

You don't see many genuine bunnies these days with kids coming through special squads, etc, most can bat okay when given the chance.

 

[frankrizzo]

So who is a tailender?

Some number 8's play the short ball better than some top order bats but if they actually had a hard and fast rule banning bouncers not at certain batsmen but at certain batting order spots then teams could even manipulate the batting order to take advantage.

 

[frankrizzo]

If people were really serious about making sure players(and officials as we sadly found out today) don't get hurt again they would be calling for a total ban on the hard ball but then boucher still would have got hurt and steve waugh and dizzy still would have nearly killed each other back in columbo in 1999.

 

[2Knights]

Yes, who would determine who is classified as a genuine bunny? I never thought Glenn McGrath could bat, but he made a Test 50. Look at Stuart Broad. Definitely very uncomfortable against short bowling, but the moment he faces bowlers who pitch it up, he's a very good player. If you weren't allowed to bowl short at Broad, he'd make 100s.

You don't see many genuine bunnies these days with kids coming through special squads, etc, most can bat okay when given the chance.

Fair point. The situation I had in mind was Brett Lee in 2002 on a very quick WACA pitch, terrorizing English tailenders. That went beyond the pale.

 

[Adelaide Hawk]

Fair point. The situation I had in mind was Brett Lee in 2002 on a very quick WACA pitch, terrorizing English tailenders. That went beyond the pale.

I hear you. The thing that annoys me about that is Lee cops the blame, but he was only bowling what Waugh told him to.

 

[Black Diamond]

Some good points in this post.

After a few days reflection, some thoughts -

1. Several former internationals (including some from the pre-helmet era), Geoff Boycott, Mike Atherton, Ian Chappell and others, have noted the loss of fear and change of technique that came with helmets. It seems to me this has been a gradual process. More batsmen are being hit on the head now than in the era immediately following helmet introduction.

I think Ricky Ponting's evolution as a player perfectly illustrates this. Even up until the mid-2000s he would wear a cap, especially in one day matches. He started as a pretty traditional cricketer (bat in the V early in the innings, keep it on the ground etc.) but as he got older and a bit desperate for runs he would throw the bat at anything short, even ball he would previously have left alone. This stuck out to me because in his last few seasons he seemed incapable of keeping a pull shot on the grass. He was too slow to roll his wrists over the top and was hitting ball he should have left alone. He was also turning away from the ball during the stroke. It's no surprise that in his last three season England and South Africa stitched him up quite badly, but he cashed right in against India. Coincidentally Ponting's career spanned across some significant innovations in 50 and 20 over cricket.

2. Calls to improve helmet safety are missing the point & probably futile. Only a Ned Kelly helmet would have saved Phil Hughes. The primary defence against short-pitched bowling is active defence. Don't get hit! There is only so much protection you can design into a helmet before it starts interfering with head movement or sight of the ball.

Yep.

3. I would prefer to see less short-pitched bowling against tail-enders, especially the bunnies. I'm not sure if this is best achieved by further regulation or more pro-active umpiring. Batsmen who can't bat don't deserve short-pitched stuff.

No, for the reasons previously mentioned.

4. Some batting practices need to be eradicated, especially turning the head away from short-pitched deliveries. This needs to be coached out of the game at all levels.

Back before they had helmets, batsmen usually always got in line with the delivery and they would leave the shot ball by leaning inside or outside of it. In other words, the leave was really just an extension of the back-foot defensive stroke just as all shots are built on top of the basic forward and back defence. Leaving the ball this way means a shot can be played if necessary and rules out the possibility of ducking into a ball which stays low like Langer did too often. The last Australian to leave the ball this way habitually was probably Steve Waugh. Kallis is the only modern batsman who springs to mind who would use this method rather than defaulting to ducking.

 

[Doodlesweaver]

This stuck out to me because in his last few seasons he seemed incapable of keeping a pull shot on the grass. He was too slow to roll his wrists over the top and was hitting ball he should have left alone. He was also turning away from the ball during the stroke. It's no surprise that in his last three season England and South Africa stitched him up quite badly, but he cashed right in against India. Coincidentally Ponting's career spanned across some significant innovations in 50 and 20 over cricket.


Kallis is the only modern batsman who springs to mind who would use this method rather than defaulting to ducking.

You are dead right about Punter. He became incapable of leaving short deliveries or keeping them down. It was a real downfall of his game. I watched one match where pre-game the journos had been asking him about his difficulties with the pull shot and it seemed to spur him on to play it more and against completely unsuitable deliveries. Almost every shot became a pull-shot. Never seen anything more stupid than that while batting by a senior experienced player.


Alistair Cook is a leaner. Don't see him ducking too often but then his back foot game is his strength.

 

[The_Reaper]

Some good points in this post.

I think Ricky Ponting's evolution as a player perfectly illustrates this. Even up until the mid-2000s he would wear a cap, especially in one day matches. He started as a pretty traditional cricketer (bat in the V early in the innings, keep it on the ground etc.) but as he got older and a bit desperate for runs he would throw the bat at anything short, even ball he would previously have left alone. This stuck out to me because in his last few seasons he seemed incapable of keeping a pull shot on the grass. He was too slow to roll his wrists over the top and was hitting ball he should have left alone. He was also turning away from the ball during the stroke. It's no surprise that in his last three season England and South Africa stitched him up quite badly, but he cashed right in against India. Coincidentally Ponting's career spanned across some significant innovations in 50 and 20 over cricket.


Yep.


No, for the reasons previously mentioned.


Back before they had helmets, batsmen usually always got in line with the delivery and they would leave the shot ball by leaning inside or outside of it. In other words, the leave was really just an extension of the back-foot defensive stroke just as all shots are built on top of the basic forward and back defence. Leaving the ball this way means a shot can be played if necessary and rules out the possibility of ducking into a ball which stays low like Langer did too often. The last Australian to leave the ball this way habitually was probably Steve Waugh. Kallis is the only modern batsman who springs to mind who would use this method rather than defaulting to ducking.

Did you read Gideon Haigh's article in the Australian?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...per-safe-cricket/story-fnb58rpk-1227138799932

Covers exactly what you're talking about

 

[Black Diamond]

You are dead right about Punter. He became incapable of leaving short deliveries or keeping them down. It was a real downfall of his game. I watched one match where pre-game the journos had been asking him about his difficulties with the pull shot and it seemed to spur him on to play it more and against completely unsuitable deliveries. Almost every shot became a pull-shot. Never seen anything more stupid than that while batting by a senior experienced player.


Alistair Cook is a leaner. Don't see him ducking too often but then his back foot game is his strength.

Yes, Cook is a leaner primarily. Thanks for pointing that out. Ian Bell is a leaner too.

Ponting really the best illustration of the decline of Australian batsmanship given how he was raised, the span of his career and the innovations within than period.

Did you read Gideon Haigh's article in the Australian?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/spo...per-safe-cricket/story-fnb58rpk-1227138799932

Covers exactly what you're talking about

Maybe I am Gideon Haigh? But no, I haven't read it. Will do shortly. Thanks.

 

[Ashton Agar]

Hughes wasn't a tailender anyway, he was the next Bradman so it wouldn't have stopped this from happening anyway and similar incidents happening in the future.

 

[Doodlesweaver]

That's an excellent article by Haigh. It's one of the few I've read by a journalist. I just don't want to go near most of it.

I cycle around London and I'm constantly telling myself to stay alert. I never want the fear to go, that makes you over-confident, especially when the adrenalin is up.

I wear a helmet (now that really is an illusory piece of equipment as my antagonists are not a small, fast moving ball but vehicles - only one winner there) and occasionally I cycle short distances without one and it is noticeable my levels of fear go up unbelievably. To some extent, the wearing of such equipment is an illusion.

And as Haigh points out, not always a positive one.

 

[The Passenger]

Let's not overreact but think it through.

This is very true and I read a very pertinent point in one article that said "Now is not the time to make reactive changes to the rules, but to reinforce and defend the current rules"

It's hard not to react when something like this happens, but we need to remember that people have died playing cricket before, and probably more often than people would realise. But when you consider how much cricket is played across the world and that the act of sending a rock hard object at 100k/h+ (140k/h+ at the higher levels) is an inherently dangerous thing to do, these occurrences are still rare which means the rules must be doing something right in protecting the batsmen.

There will no doubt be a review of helmet designs, especially in protecting the neck area, and these advancements will be positive. But changing the rules I don't think will do anything. As I've mentioned whenever you make a rule change there are always going to be some unintended consequences.

The main thing I think that will come from this is junior coaches focussing a lot more on short ball technique, which from talking to a lot of people involved in junior cricket over the last few days, and indeed over the last few years, to me it seems to have largely fallen by the wayside. A lot of coaches - and youngsters - seem to think that helmets will provide ultimate protection, even though accidents like this have happened many times before.

I also think there may be an introduction of mandatory helmets across all levels, though I'm a bit torn. Once again unintended consequences - It would be tough for a 40 year old who's never worn a lid (like my brother) to suddenly need to adjust. I think the current rules of all juniors required helmets is the right step, because the obvious intention there is that when they graduate to senior cricket they will continue to do so.

 

[bombersfan4000]

That Ricky Ponting one I vaguely remember - Why was he not wearing a helmet? Was season? Just seems so unfathomable these days to a medium pacer or quicker.

Pointing often in the first half of his career, rearly wore a helmet in the odi's (maybe early on in his innings againt teams like Pakistan or the with)

 

[raptalia]

Re designing helmets, if possible, may go some way to preventing serious injury but maybe it needs to go a bit further than that.

I posted these thoughts in another forum and some posters may have similar view or contrary opinion I post it here. I do not expect everyone to agree and it was first posted in reponse to calls to ban the bouncer. I note that 2Knights posted some similar thoughts so it is nice to know I am not alone.

Here goes...

I read an interesting comment from former England opener Mike Atherton earlier in the week. Atherton said that since the introduction of helmets the technique employed by players when playing the hook shot has changed. Before helmets players were always coached to step outside the line and hook off the shoulder with the head out of the line. I know this is fact because I have a copy of Don Bradman's 'Art Of Cricket' in which he spends several pages showing this very technique. As Mike Atherton points out since the introduction of helmets batsmen have become less conscious of a hit in the head and many of them pull and hook chest on with the head in line with the ball. The article below was written before Phillip Hughes died but that should not reduce the meaning in the message.

http://www.foxsports.com.au/cricket...136055514?nk=063c32bfb520d9047be435957589f8f4

We all enjoy seeing shots like the ramp shot but when you think about it this shot is really a recipe for disaster. One day a player is going to get it horribly wrong and the ball will catch the edge and deflect into his face probably under the visor. I hope that never happens but I have to admit that I have often thought that the shot relies too much on good judgement. What is of real concern is that a young kid will watch highly experienced players attempting this shot and will try it will devastating results.

Maybe the first thing that coaches across the nation should be doing in the aftermath of this terrible tragedy is to check the batting technique employed by players against bouncers. It is not the bouncer that needs to be banned but batting techniques tweaked. If it was good enough for Bradman, reputedly the best exponent of the pull and hook shot world has ever seen to make sure he got outside of the line then it should be good enough for the mere mortals. I am not saying that employing the Bradman technique would have necessarily prevented Phil's injury but checking how players, particularly the young, play short pitched bowling might save some one else from serious injury.

Look at the design of helmets for sure but also look at the batting techniques employed by young players.

 

[the_interloper]

Maybe we go back to Graeme Yallop's lid?

 

[The Passenger]

Look at the design of helmets for sure but also look at the batting techniques employed by young players.

100% agree the coaching of young kids shot ball technique is the important thing to look at. The other thing they do now is take their eye's off the ball much quicker. Although in saying that, there was nothing really wrong with the way Hughes played his shot - He just missed it. Although he did employ the technique Atherton was talking about above where his head was in line with the ball.

It's also important to remember the game is no more or no less dangerous than it was last week. We might not have seen that danger manifest itself so brutally and publicly before, but there has always been an element of danger facing up to quick bowling.

 

[western royboy]

100% agree the coaching of young kids shot ball technique is the important thing to look at. The other thing they do now is take their eye's off the ball much quicker. Although in saying that, there was nothing really wrong with the way Hughes played his shot - He just missed it. Although he did employ the technique Atherton was talking about above where his head was in line with the ball.

It's also important to remember the game is no more or no less dangerous than it was last week. We might not have seen that danger manifest itself so brutally and publicly before, but there has always been an element of danger facing up to quick bowling.

Here's a newsflash for you - the amount of coaching kids receive today is negligible, there are simply too many in the current cluttered setup. Coaches are more like team managers, ill equipped with the time and in some cases the experience and knowledge to properly educate the kids.