This is Athers' response in the Times - note that this is the second similar incident in a month according to the article...
Helmets have made us complacent
Mike Atherton Chief Cricket Correspondent
Last updated at 11:30AM, November 25 2014
There is a certain irony in the knowledge that Phil Hughes was stricken and sent into hospital and on to life support not by a ball that was too quick for him, but by a ball that was too slow.
Hughes is a left-hander; he was hit on the left side of his head. All former professional batsmen know, therefore, that in trying to play the hook shot, he was through his movements too soon. He had completed the stroke a fraction before the ball arrived, turning his head having completed the shot, only for the ball to hit him below the helmet, near his left ear, as he swivelled around. Maybe the ball “stuck” in the pitch a fraction longer than normal; maybe Hughes simply mistimed his shot.
There are two ways an opener can get clattered on the head, and, paradoxically, it often happens when they are too early on the stroke rather than too late. Openers have a phrase to which they tend to adhere: give the bowlers the first hour. The ball is new, the pitch fresh, the bowlers eager. It pays to be a little conservative. Everything is at its quickest then, and the hook shot — one of the riskiest in a batsman’s portfolio — can be put away until later.
Until the ball is older, the pitch flatter and the bowlers a little more tired. That is exactly where Hughes found himself at 2.23pm yesterday afternoon at the Sydney Cricket Ground. He was playing well, pushing hard to regain his Test place. He had given the opening bowlers the early phase of the game; this was his time now, time to take advantage. A short ball from Sean Abbott, therefore, presented an opportunity rather than a threat, but seconds after being hit Hughes collapsed into the turf, a second blow to the head as he fell, accentuating the first.
Even in this helmeted, padded age, cricket remains a brutal game and Hughes’ sickening injury was a reminder of that. To read Kevin Pietersen’s recent autobiography, and the description of waiting to bat against Mitchell Johnson at the “Gabbatoir”, was another. England’s tailenders were, to be frank, sh**ting themselves, said Pietersen; Pietersen himself thought he could be killed. To be reminded of those things is to be reminded of the terrible beauty but threat that genuine fast bowling brings to the game. Without fast bowling, without the physical threat, cricket is a lesser game. But with that, comes inevitable risk.
For the vast majority of batsmen who get hit, the helmet does the trick and prevents serious injury. We have seen a few examples in recent years of the ball bursting through the grille of the helmet, as it did to Stuart Broad last summer, or as it did to the West Indian batsman, Kieron Pollard, during Twenty20 finals day at the Ageas Bowl in 2010, when a Dominic Cork bouncer smashed sickeningly into his right eye. Instinctively, I thought that Pollard would lose his eye at that moment (he was fine ultimately) and Broad did break his nose, so briefly ruining his looks, but there have been few instances of a threat to life, as in the hours after Hughes’s injury yesterday.
Maybe helmets had made us a little complacent, then. Certainly, they have changed the game beyond all recognition. Before the advent of helmets in the mid to late 1970s, batsmen were acutely aware that a blow to the head could put them in the morgue. Facing Harold Larwood in the 1930s, or Frank Tyson in the 1950s, or that dreaded combination Lillee ’n Thomson in the 1970s, was to walk to the crease with that knowledge. It is why I have always argued that any comparisons between batsmen of the pre-helmet age, and post-helmet age, are ridiculous.
Helmets changed the way batsmen play, and in doing so altered the dynamic of the game fundamentally. Whereas, pre-helmets, batsmen tended to move back and across initially, post-helmets, they advanced to the bowler more; whereas, pre-helmets, batsman hooked cautiously, infrequently and off the back foot, giving themselves a fraction longer to see the ball, post-helmets (think, above all, Matthew Hayden here) they hooked off the front foot with added danger. The balance between bat and ball, aggressor and defender, shifted: batsmen are now, figuratively and literally, on the front foot.
Hughes’s injury, therefore, is a reminder that batting remains, if not quite as dangerous a game as before, then still one with serious risk attached.
I spoke today to a writer who was at the SCG and witnessed the action. I wanted to check that Hughes had actually been hit on the left side off the head. He certainly had, my colleague said, before adding that he bumped into Ben Rohrer, the New South Wales batsman, just after Hughes had been hit. Rohrer suffered a similar injury earlier in the month, hit on the side of the head, through his stroke too soon, staggering a few steps before collapsing. Thankfully, Rohrer recovered fully, although my colleague said that he still looked pale even yesterday, three weeks after the incident. Let us hope that Hughes, like Rohrer, recovers to tell the tale.
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Topic: Phil Hughes in critical condition (Read 19788 times)