An expert on cricket equipment safety believes helmet manufacturers will in the future be able to protect the upper neck of a batsman without restricting their movement, following calls for player safety to be heightened in the aftermath of Phillip Hughes’s death.
The chief executive of Cricket Australia, James Sutherland, has announced that the organisation will “immediately” conduct an investigation following the tragic events that unfolded at the Sydney Cricket Ground, when Hughes was struck on the neck by a bouncer and died two days later in hospital.
Gunn & Moore and Gray-Nicolls both confirmed this week that the incident could cause manufacturers to reassess protection of the neck. Nasser Hussain, the former England captain, said on Thursday: “Putting bits on the neck … is an area we’ve never thought about.”
A new British standard of head protection was ratified in December last year by the England and Wales Cricket Board in conjunction with the International Cricket Council’s medical committee, following research and testing undertaken at Loughborough University. Andy Harland, the director of the university’s sport technology institute, is confident that improvements to neck protection can be made in the coming years, without impacting too heavily on a batsman’s movement, which is the current problem.
He said: “I suspect that as other materials are developed in the years to come, we will be able to protect this area effectively without restricting players’ mobility. There is nothing obviously available now that will do that and we will have to study the full details of Phil Hughes’s death.
“Certainly every big helmet manufacturer you can think of, when they joined the British standard panel, there was unanimous agreement that they all wanted to improve the safety of their products. Not one manufacturer is complacent about this. We owe it to Phil Hughes to have a serious discussion about safety.
“Ultimately, with any piece of safety equipment, there has to be a compromise between safety, comfort and performance, I see those in a triangle and if you prioritise one of those, you almost always have to compromise on something. Some people used to use motorcycle helmets and they protect against all things, but they were uncomfortable and didn’t allow players to perform to the level they wanted to. Players want to be able to perform to the best of their ability.”
Tributes continued to pour in for Hughes on Friday from across the sporting world. A decision has yet to be made on whether a Test match between Australia and India will go ahead as scheduled in Brisbane next week. The chief executive of South Australia – Hughes’s team – said everyone involved with the club was “devastated” and “shattered”.
The former Australia captain Ricky Ponting does not believe it should be played.
“It’s one thing to say Phillip Hughes would have wanted the four-Test series against India to start as scheduled,” he wrote in a column for News Limited newspapers.
“It’s another for 11 men to take the field at the Gabba a week after their close friend died. It’s been such a tragic week for the Hughes family and the cricket community and I can’t imagine how anybody can be expected to play Test cricket on Thursday. In fact I don’t think it would be right.
The Australia rugby union coach, Michael Cheika, revealed that he cried when he learned of Hughes’s death. The Wallabies will wear black armbands at Twickenham on Saturday and have requested a minute’s silence before the game against England.
“I’d never met Phil but when I heard about it I cried because there’s something that touches you about it, how unfortunate it is,” said Cheika. “We just want to show we’re praying for the family, and that’s all we can do. I just want something to happen so that his family back home know that we care and support, and I’m sure everyone in Australia is supporting them.”
Sutherland said that Sean Abbott, the bowler, was “holding up well” following the traumatic incident.
