Are batsmen losing their head due to helmets?

Head injuries may actually be the result of batsmen feeling more reassured because of their helmet

Cricket is a much safer game now than it was, say 30 years ago. The batsman protect themselves against a missile hurled at them at speeds of over 140 kmph with an array of gear that now includes helmets, chest guards, thigh pads, elbow guards and shin pads to augment the security provided by the customary abdominal guards and leg pads. The damage that a cricket ball at high speed is capable of has once again become apparent after Australian batsman Phil Hughes, playing in a Sheffield Shield match, was felled by a hit to his head and now fights for life in hospital. The incident reminds us of the numerous cases of the kind, like those of Nari Contractor, Raman Lamba and Gary Kirsten.

The entire episode of bodyline bowling conceived of by England captain Douglas Jardine in the 1932-33 against Australia was founded on the menace that the fast bowling of Harold Larwood could cause in the rival batting line-up. It was an intimidatory tactic that preyed on a batsman’s vulnerability. It was only around 40 years afterwards that the helmet received legitimacy as protection for the batsmen. Some batsmen shunned this security. Mohinder Amarnath famously played with a solar hat against Australia in 1979, while Sunil Gavaskar fabricated his own skull protector and never sported a helmet in his career.

However, the development of the helmet for the use of batsmen, while providing that much-needed armour for the noggin, could, in a twisted way, have actually contributed to batsmen’s head injuries. To put it simply, the reassurance that comes from being shielded could inspire batsmen to be more daring in the manner in which they contend with bouncers and beamers. As Brian Lara, commenting on Hughes injury, told Reuters: “There are some batsmen who feed on that sort of attack and I don't really believe it's anything that should affect fast bowlers and the rules governing that."

Injuries resulting out of a batsman’s confidence, or overconfidence rather, may not have been a subject of sports science research till now. However, a similar use of helmets and the resultant rise in injuries in American football has been noted by Edward Tenner, an expert in history and physical science, in his book Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the History of Unintended Consequences. To quote him: “Studying films of actual games, Torg [Dr Joseph Torg, an orthopaedic surgeon at several US universities] found that stronger helmets introduced in the 1960s and 1970s for better protection enabled players to use their heads as battering rams. … What seemed to be a technological solution had become an extension of the medical problem.”

The cricket helmet, in much the same way, has enabled a batsman to be more ambitious in shot-making, especially in the era of T20 cricket, where every ball, whether bowled by a psychopath of a fast bowler or a cheerful spinner, is meant to be hoicked into the stands. In the bodyline series you would never have seen Don Bradman or Stan McCabe or Bill Ponsford dance down the track to Larwood to hit him over his head. Today, Rohit Sharma or David Warner would be wont to do just that. Even in Hughes’case, his teammates say that he usually avoided playing at bouncers. But having been at the crease for a while, the batsman probably thought it was safe to take on the bouncer from Sean Abbott, especially since his head was protected.  

Some of the injuries we have mentioned, like those of Kirsten, and of Hughes himself, are the result of the batsmen going for the hook, a stroke that leaves your face open to injuries if your hand-eye coordination should fail by a micro-second. But batsmen dare to hook, reassured that their helmet is the defence against any bio-mechanical failure. Sometimes, with bad consequences.