Nixon column: Something has to be done to help protect bowlers too

(Photo: Getty Images)

By Paul Nixon

Everyone in cricket was shocked by the injury Luke Fletcher suffered almost a fortnight ago when Sam Hain’s drive smashed him in the head as the Notts bowler was in his follow-through. And it’s the right decision to rule him out for the rest of the season.

I’d seen one of them before when I was playing in the ICL. A young Indian bowler, I can’t recall his name, had one smashed back at him like a rocket.

It hit his forehead before he had even looked up. It didn’t cut though, it just swelled up straight away, but he carried on playing.

It wasn’t great to see, and it’s been a concern to me for a while. Since going out to the West Indies and seeing how hard the West Indians hit the ball, it dawned on me.

One of the umpires in the CPL had a helmet on because he’d been hit before and Gerard Abood did the same at the Big Bash. We also see Bruce Oxenford with a shield to protect himself.

But something has to be done to help the bowlers. They’re obviously a few yards closer to the batsman than the umpire and something like skull caps would certainly be beneficial.

The game is changing with technology, but guys are much stronger than they were before, and we all know how much bats help power nowadays. It’s something that needs to be addressed because we don’t want these injuries, and it could have been so much worse.

In terms of Luke’s recovery, a lot of it will be mental. Physically, he’d probably be okay to play soon, but you need to get it out of your mind. I remember getting hit in the face by a top edge from Keith Dutch when I was keeping, standing up

It’s quite easy to be a bit stand-offish after incidents like that, pulling your head away – and it definitely takes some time to get back to being as normal as you can.

There are some that struggle with the mental side, and it takes them longer than you expect to recover. Stuart Broad is a prime example after being hit by a Varun Aaron bouncer in 2014.

It’s only recently that we’ve seen him back to his full potential with the bat, and that blow would have been one of the reasons.

You have to be careful when coming back to the game. It can feel horrible to sit out a match when you feel so close to full fitness, but that extra week or month helps massively in the long run.

You can also end up coming back and trying too hard – and that aggravates injuries and makes things ten times worse. It’s back to the mental side, and knowing what is right.

It can be tough for other players on the field with injuries, too. With Fletch there was much more of a wound and that’s never nice to see. The ICL incident was just like a big egg attached to his head, but it still wasn’t pretty.

But we saw the Notts lads and the Warwickshire batsmen affected by Fletcher’s incident, and it can be hard for some to get their focus back into the game.

It’s more because we are not used to seeing it. In rugby, you’re seeing injuries all the time and get hardened to it. I’m used to looking down and seeing fingers all over the place anyway, so most injuries don’t affect me too much.

Fletch has also said that he doesn’t bowl in the nets because he was worried about the speed of the ball coming back, but I’m keen as a coach to keep bowlers in the nets.

We do reaction drills where we have a coach hitting the ball back at the bowler as soon as he bowls it, with a proper cricket ball, to get the bowlers to get their hands and heads up and back in the game.

We build up slowly, and get the players used to it. First, it’s just underarm lobbed back at them, then with a bit more pace before we start having it come off the bat.

In general, bowlers are much better fielders than they were even a decade or so ago, and these drills help. It’s all about attention to detail and you see it with the likes of Chris Jordan as to how good their reactions are with catching the ball when it’s driven straight back at them.

One injury that struck a chord with me in the recent past was when Mark Boucher had the bail hit him in the eye. I actually had a couple of close blows where I got hit on the nose and head by a bail, and it does hurt. I very quickly learnt to put sunglasses on because I just had the thought that it could cause damage.

I also wore a gumshield when keeping, but just the helmet when batting. I didn’t like an inside thigh pad so never wore one of them, but my leg now is blue with bruising. Maybe I would have worn it every time now I see the damage, but at the time it was something that kept me on edge and I felt my defence was much better without one.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*