Limiting the bouncer
8By The Spotter
“Pull up to the bumper” is the title of a 1981 hit song by Grace Jones and though the lithe songstress obviously wasn’t belting out this line in reference to the dangers of short-pitched bowling in cricket, she may as well have been.
After the devastating passing of Phil Hughes, would it not be the right thing for cricketing powers-that-be to right now consider how they could limit the frequency and height of the bouncer in test cricket? Really, it’s a bit of a band aid solution to be speaking first of reinforced helmets as the answer to protecting the brain- rather it’s all a bit brainless to be going first down that track I’d have thought.
It seems that the majority (barring a sudden sea change) would still want cricket to not go too soft and to keep the gladiatorial aspect alive; thereby maintaining a balanced joust between bowler and batsman.
Here is what I propose in that respect:
i) If a delivery passes above shoulder blade height of a player in his normal standing position, that delivery shall be called a no ball; a run and a following free-hit are then credited to the batting side. Should this event occur the second time in a single innings by the same perpetrator, that bowler has then forfeited his/her right to bowl again in said innings.
ii) If a ball is delivered by the same bowler less than five times in a separate innings between the chest area and top of the shoulder blade region of a batsman, then those deliveries are deemed to be legal and without penalty. If however this number exceeds more than twice consecutively or a fifth time in total, the bowler in question will also forfeit their right to bowl again in said innings. Any delivery under the chest area to be wholly considered as legal and without penalty.
In both cases i) and ii)- if an infraction is deemed to have occurred, the perpetrator may remain on the field but cannot bowl- somewhat like five fouls in basketball and then you’re out of there (in a manner of speaking; for the rest of an innings anyway).
A young man died in a freakish occurrence, having read the cause of death a couple of mil either side he would have had a bruise and probably scored another century.
There are millions of balls bowled every year, very few result in serious injury let alone a death.
Emotions are running very high ( and mawkishly in my opinion) people need to grieve as they want but the game needs to be left alone. There may be another death caused by this injury be it today or in 37 years time but every aspect of living has an inherent risk to it, you cannot remove the “acts of god” which this surely was.
Lets get the funeral out of the way this week; there will genuine grief but once that’s done get on with it.
Agree Paul,
What interests is me is whether there will be any change of tactics from Australia this season.
For example, will Clarke come tooting in from cover telling a tail-ender that Mitchell Johnson is going to break their arm
Hmmm…you said: “let’s get the funeral out of the way”. Before that line you were beginning to convince me but then everything suddenly all fell by the wayside. A freak accident maybe, may not happen for 37 years again etc, everyone’s got over-wrought and too emotional about it rah rah, but Paul I’m afraid you have missed my point; which was solely about preventing another death of this nature by a proposal to make cricket a safer game.
Or is it ok in your book if another top-level player gets hit in the scone in say 15 years, not 37 years from now and dies in front of everyone. Oh wait, let’s ride his funeral out also and all just get on with it again. As I said, and with respect because you stated your words well, you twisted my point somewhat.
Leg Break said :
What interests is me is whether there will be any change of tactics from Australia this season.
For example, will Clarke come tooting in from cover telling a tail-ender that Mitchell Johnson is going to break their arm
signman said :
That poofter Clark has always being a twat… I remember when Clark made his after match speech when we beat Aussie in that test in Hobart about 2 or 3 years ago the idiot didn’t even mention anything whatsoever about our team as though we hadn’t even played in the test, former Aussie captain Allan Border was a class act, he’d would always give the opposition credit when it was deserved deserved.
There’s always being a problem whether a bouncer is too high or not, it’s open to too much interpretation from each umpire, unless it’s clearly too high…
and as said before when batsmen play short pitch bowling it’s up each individual to show some nous when executing that sort of bowling.
Paulthespotter said :
everyone’s got over-wrought and too emotional about it rah rah,
signman said :
Very good point Paulthespotter… feels like it’s being going on for ages, no doubt it was a tragedy, but life goes on.
Oops, take a closer read signman, you’ve got the wrong end of a very long stick- it’s the opposite to what you think I said.
And that’s pretty rough on Clarke right now- he’s obviously been very genuine in his statements over the past few days- he’s patently just lost a great mate. You could have cut him a bit more slack.
Fair enough… obviously Hughes should be given tributes etc for a little while, but quite honestly though it’s the media milking the situation as much as they can that’s giving me a bit of a guts ache.
Yeah, it’s pretty clear Clarke was a very good mate of Hughes… but from what I’ve heard of Clarke through interviews etc the bloke comes across as a real jerk, so I’m not all of a sudden going to say Clarke’s a top bloke because of the tragedy that’s happened.