Phil Hughes helmet; cycling?

[Tonyf33]

That's the nub of it. Neither players, fans nor spectators are calling for immediate changes in the aftermath of this tragic, and freak event. Better to have a careful and measured review and response once the immediate emotion has passed.

Full contact sports such as rugby actually were proactive in their stance recognising that certain aspects of the sport could lead to serious injury. They made certain things illegal and cracked down on other things and though injuries will still occur it reduced the level of risk and makes players have to actually think about what they are doing and take responsibility for the safety of their fellow players. Breaching this is punished and often very heavily.
As in any sport safety should be tantamount, people are not pieces of meat to be treated as being expendable just for the sake of entertainment, cricket might like to think as itself as a gentleman's game but it is so far from the reality. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for the powers that be to have a proper look at player safety both short and long term.

[Bonefishblues]

That's the nub of it. Neither players, fans nor spectators are calling for immediate changes in the aftermath of this tragic, and freak event. Better to have a careful and measured review and response once the immediate emotion has passed.

Full contact sports such as rugby actually were proactive in their stance recognising that certain aspects of the sport could lead to serious injury. They made certain things illegal and cracked down on other things and though injuries will still occur it reduced the level of risk and makes players have to actually think about what they are doing and take responsibility for the safety of their fellow players.
As in any sport safety should be tantamount, people are not pieces of meat to be treated as being expendable just for the sake of entertainment, cricket might like to think as itself as a gentleman's game but it is so far from the reality. Hopefully this will be a wake up call for the powers that be to have a proper look at player safety but short and long term.

I agree, cricket has an excellent record in this regard. It is well umpired. Laws have evolved with the changing game. I was pleased to see that a sober appraisal of this incident will take place to see what if any lessons need to be learned.

I'm not really clear what point you're making tbh - player safety should be tantamount to what exactly? If you are drawing the conclusion that cricket doesn't place a high priority on player safety then I think you are incorrect.

[MartinC]

I can't help but think that the opinions of the CTC forum on the conduct of cricket are as welcome, relevant and insightful as the MCC preparing some advice on safe cycling.

[[XAP]Bob]

Opinions of members (of the forum, not necessarily the CTC)...

It's an instance of "if it saves one life", an argument no-one ever seems to accept when I suggest* that we ban all private cars...


* Suggest in response to the argument...

[Si]

firstly - to Tony and reohn - apologies if my previous post was a bit brusque sounding - wasn't meant to be but on rereading it it looks like the product of a very long day! No offence meant.


Funny you should mention yorkers. It would be interesting to see which produce more broken bones, bouncers or yorkers - my money is on yorkers. But if you were to ban them then we'd be back to underarm with a tennis ball!

Also, again we talk about hurting the batsman. But you are not differentiating between different types of hurt. As previously said, there are many perfectly acceptable sports where someone goes into a tackle with the intention of hurting an opponent - the question is the extent to which they want to hurt. I stand by the statement that a fast bowler may want to inflict bruises and shake up an opponent (just like a legal tackler in rugby) but there is no desire to do serious harm. Thus if we combine a lack of desire to do serious harm with the astronomically small chance of harm being done...when, again, we have to ask why should we ban bouncers any more than, say, banning rugby scrums?

[[XAP]Bob]

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You get alot more warning, and recovery time, with a bouncer than a flying fly-half...

[jawaka]

Fortunately cricket isn't played this way now. the barrage went on for an hour

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60GAhXvU90k

I watched it feeling sick as it looked like someone would be killed. Thanks to Tony Grieg's "they grovel" the West Indies were fired up and angry so I censure Greig
for raisng the heat to near boiling point rather than the bowler, for raising the temperature.
incredible courage from a 40 year old

[Tonyf33]

So the reality isn't that rare, more about luck of the blow fractured skull depression etc.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/30377213
As I've said, in other sports they've done stuff to alleviate matters, made players change behaviour & risk taking, not added more 'protective aids'. They removed the grey areas so as to vastly lessen injury, all this talk about it being part of the game, so was smashing your opposite number in rugby league, pile drives, shoulder charges, virtually nothing was off the agenda, a good stiff arm or even elbow was overlooked. And yet in one of the toughest sports on the planet they saw sense..why can't cricket.. because it's part of the game...idiots

[[XAP]Bob]

So the reality isn't that rare, more about luck of the blow fractured skull depression etc.. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/30377213
As I've said, in other sports they've done stuff to alleviate matters, made players change behaviour & risk taking, not added more 'protective aids'. They removed the grey areas so as to vastly lessen injury, all this talk about it being part of the game, so was smashing your opposite number in rugby league, pile drives, shoulder charges, virtually nothing was off the agenda, a good stiff arm or even elbow was overlooked. And yet in one of the toughest sports on the planet they saw sense..why can't cricket.. because it's part of the game...idiots

In a study published last year, researchers at Loughborough and Cardiff Metropolitan universities analysed 35 videos of first-class cricketers being injured despite wearing helmets.

Most involved being hit on the faceguard or peak, or when the ball got through the gap between them. These mostly caused cuts, fractures and contusions.

But six (17%) of the injuries resulted from the ball hitting the back of the helmet's shell and two (6%) the unprotected neck or occiput (lower left- or right-side region of the back of the skull). The study said impacts in these areas were more likely to result in concussions. This seemed to corroborate findings from US studies into baseball impacts on batters' heads.

Prevention might be improved by "extending the shell of the helmet to cover the entire occipital region", the study recommended.

"We should design helmets as strong as technology allows," says Antonio Belli, professor of trauma neurosurgery at Birmingham University. "But we need to accept that in cricket and other sports that involve hard objects or bodily contact there will always be freak accidents. I would put what happened to Philip Hughes into that category.

"For the number of hours played in cricket, it's actually considered a safe sport in terms of concussion."

Cricket simply isn't particularly dangerous, certainly not in terms of head injuries. There is no reason to change the law to prevent something that is very rare. Or maybe we should all play touch rugby, with a sponge ball. And cricket should have a sponge ball and a foam bat?

In rugby, and other contact sports there is a continuum of injuries sustained, with some statistical variation - the target for the rules in these sports is to shift those injuries into the "acceptable", and make sure that the life changing injuries are well outside the bounds of normality
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They still happen, but they are rare, because the aim for rules is to limit the opportunity for these events. Rugby hasn't decided that you can't tackle from a standing position, the game continues despite freak occurrences.