Safety hysteria in cricket at the moment....

[BradG]

We all know it started with Phil Hughes being fatally injured, despite actually wearing a helmet at the time. My local competition is considering making the helmet compulsory for senior batsman, I mean seriously, are we not adults? Now the latest thing is Cricket Australia are developing a helmet for bowlers to wear. I mean come on, do they want us to play with a tennis ball and go out wrapped in bubble wrap too?

I'm and adult, I can make my own decision about weather or not to wear a helmet when I bat and I know full well the risks of taking to a cricket ground, regardless of what protective equipment I am wearing. For the record though, I always bat with a helmet on.

Rather I'm going to put forward an unpopular opinion and one that I'm sure people don't want to hear; most batsman who get hit in the head have only themselves to blame. DO NOT TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE BALL, this was drilled into us as a junior player. The coach would say, you might get hit in the helmet when you are batting, but if you take your eye off the ball, you WILL get hit in the helmet when you bat. I see it time and again, Steve Smith was concussed in the Ashes series because of exactly this; he turned his head and took his eye off the ball and in turn, exposed an unprotected part of his head and neck. The solution is not more protective equipment nor making that equipment mandatory, the solution is properly teaching and drilling batsman to A; play the short ball better and B; not rely on their protective equipment. I believe the helmet has made many batsman complacent and they simply close their eyes and turn their head away relying on the helmet for protection rather than moving out of the way with their eye on the ball.

The most dangerous part of my Saturday in summer is still driving down the road to get to my game, not the game itself. Anyways, rant mode off.....