Cricket needs to bounce back

KARACHI: A debate over banning bouncers invariably continues to rage on after the tragic demise of left-handed Australian opener Phillip Joel Hughes. When Shane Watson was struck by one such bouncer during practice for the third Test against India, the incident served to just add fuel to the fire.

Critics and legends alike have given mixed opinions over the matter, but over the course of the game’s history fielders and bowlers have also often been injured. So why doesn’t anyone talk about their safety?

Well-built right-arm England fast-bowler David Lawrence fractured his knee cap as his left foot slipped as he landed during his bowling action against New Zealand on the final day of the 1992 Wellington Test. The injury, just one small misstep, ended his career; he was forced to retire at the age of 29.

Kegan Meth, a promising 18-year-old right-arm medium pacer who made his debut for Zimbabwe against Kenya in an ODI at Bulawayo in 2006, suffered a facial injury while bowling to Bangladesh’s Nasir Hossain on August 21, 2011.

Hossain smashed a full-pitched delivery right back to where it came from. Meth was unable to react and took the blow full on his mouth, suffering a laceration of the lower lip and also losing four of his teeth.

An even graver incident was when Raman Lamba was hit on the head in a Dhaka Premier League match while fielding at forward short-leg for Abahani Krira Chakra against Mohammedan Sporting by Mehrab Hossain. He lay flat on the ground after the impact but was helped to his feet after a while. Lamba was taken to the dressing room where he lost consciousness. After surgery to remove a clot from the left side of his brain and three days of fighting, he sadly passed away.

One of the greatest wicketkeepers to grace the sport, Mark Boucher, was denied a chance to end his career on his own terms when a bail hit him the left eye on July 9, 2012 as spinner Imran Tahir bowled Somerset’s Gemaal Hussain in a tour match. Boucher was taken to the hospital and after undergoing a surgery, retired from international cricket with the words, “It is with sadness, and in some pain, that I make this announcement. Due to the severity of my eye injury, I will not be able to play international cricket again”.

PHOTO: AFP

The list of casualties on the field is long and also includes Steve Waugh and Jason Gillespie, Simon Jones, Saba Karim and Touseef Ahmed to name a few more.

Now, if we are to complain against a single delivery — the bouncer — then one needs to complain against the footmarks left by the bowlers on which Lawrence slipped. We need also ban the straight shot which ruptured open Meth’s face. And with that, replace the bails which led to Mark Boucher’s early retirement and maybe even have the fielders wear heavy armour.

Surely everyone would be thinking this is an insane idea. What would be left of the game if we ban it all or at least replace or alter the current state of rules in cricket. Safety, I know, is first and foremost but accidents, and that too freakish ones like the Hughes’ incident, are such a rarity that they cannot be used as the basis to overhaul safety rules.

Cricket would lose its essence and its edge if bouncers are banned, it would never be the same again.

Brian Lara, hit by Shoaib Akhtar in almost the same place as Hughes at the back of the neck while batting on 31 in the semi-final of the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy, is against the idea of removing a delivery which is an important part of an aggressive fast bowler’s armoury.

So if a player of that calibre is against the idea of removing a delivery which did significant damage to him as well, I guess the whole debate of ban-or-no-ban should be left aside. The gentleman’s game should be left to entertain us as it has done through the ages; without always living up to its name.

 

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