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Another bumper summer? No thanks

Roar Rookie
5th December, 2014
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Mitchell Johnson has called time on his Test career. (AFP PHOTO / ALEXANDER JOE)
Roar Rookie
5th December, 2014
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In an irony that has largely gone unnoticed, Phillip Hughes’ fatal injury came one year and one day after Michael Clarke told England tailender Jimmy Anderson to “get ready for a broken f***ing arm” in the first Test in Brisbane.

Clarke’s comment became the sledge of the summer, setting the tone for a no-love-lost encounter between Australia and England, two old enemies who were, after a series less than six months earlier, feeling even more hostile towards one another than usual.

Public opinion was divided but many took to talk-back radio to defend the Australian captain’s words. The remark, they felt, showed that Test cricket was not ‘just a game’ and that anyone who thought otherwise was naïve, foolish, deluded and un-Australian.

Cricket may not allow direct physical contact, the argument went, but it is nonetheless a form of combat in which maiming an English opponent is an acceptable alternative to getting him out.

The feeling then, needless to say, could not have been more different to the feeling now. A year ago, Australians loved fast, short-pitched bowling. Now, the very thought of it seems vaguely sickening.

The ICC’s response to the ‘broken arm’ jibe was feeble. It could have further empowered the umpires by giving them stronger instructions to clamp down on intimidatory bowling and behaviour, thereby restoring some civility to what was once known as the ‘gentlemen’s game’.

Instead, it slapped Clarke with a fine. Channel Nine also apologised – for airing the comment. The best solution all round, it seemed, was to make sure stump microphones were turned down between deliveries. It was easier than telling players to cool it.

The hypocrisy of that decision was obvious at the time. Rugby has led the football codes in showing that putting microphones on referees can improve on-field behaviour by forcing players to maintain a greater degree of decorum than they otherwise would. Cricket’s administrators, however, seem to feel insecure about exposing players and umpires to such scrutiny.

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The roughing up of England’s tail in the second innings at Brisbane last year approached the ferocity of Bodyline. Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris came around the wicket, hurling fast and short deliveries at the batsmen’s ribs with two short legs and two men behind square for the miscued pull or block. The umpires should have intervened, as the game’s rules allow.

Law 42 on ‘fair and unfair play’ states, “the bowling of fast, short-pitched balls is dangerous and unfair if the bowler’s end umpire considers that by their repetition and taking into account their length, height and direction they are likely to inflict physical injury on the striker irrespective of the protective equipment he may be wearing”.

I have rarely seen this law exercised. One umpire who was not afraid to do so was Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird. In 1995, Bird gave Courtney Walsh an official warning during the Old Trafford Test after the West Indian pitched short one time too many. His actions earned the praise of Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

“If only more Test umpires,” the late CMJ wrote, “had as great an appreciation as Bird of what is and what is not acceptable. Unquestionably there were sufficient short deliveries for batsmen to be in danger of injury”.

Martin-Jenkins continued that the “obsession with the short ball prevents taking wickets by pitching the ball further up and finding the edge of the bat” – which is precisely what Bird told Malcolm Marshall 11 years earlier at Edgbaston when the latter bounced Ian Botham and Paul Downton.

Earlier this week, Stuart Broad told The Guardian that Johnson’s bowling last summer was the fastest he has faced. There is a strong case for claiming that Johnson is the most consistently quick bowler the game has seen, or at least since the speed gun was introduced.

Brett Lee, Shoaib Akhtar and Shaun Tait have all bowled over 145kph, at times touching 160kph, but none has inhabited the 148-155kph range like Johnson. In Adelaide last year, Australia batted for the first 158 overs of the Test. In Johnson’s first over, he produced the six fastest balls of the match to that point.

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On my count, Johnson has:

• broken Ryan McLaren’s arm
• concussed McLaren after hitting him on the head
• forced Stuart Broad on to crutches after hitting him on the foot
• broken Graeme Smith’s left little finger in Sydney
• broken Smith’s right little finger two Tests later in Durban
• hit Jacques Kallis in the jaw in the same match
• fractured the thumb of Prasanna Jayawardene in the first innings at the MCG in 2012
• fractured the finger of Kumar Sangakkara in the second innings
• smacked Dhammika Prasad in the hand in the same match
• fractured David Warner’s thumb in the nets
• broken Hashim Amla’s helmet
• broken Gary Ballance’s helmet
• smacked Steve Smith’s hand in the nets

This is an alarming hit list, probably unmatched in cricket for decades, but not for lack of trying. Kemar Roach, Varun Aaron, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel have all bowled with ferocity in recent times. None has the stamina of Johnson to sustain it.

The helmets worn by modern batsmen are the result of convergent evolution. Various players have been cited as the ‘first’ to wear the hard protective shell, including Tony Greig, Dennis Amiss, Barry Richards, Graham Yallop and Asif Iqbal. Helmets emerged in the late 1970s, a time in which express – as opposed to merely quick – bowling was enjoying a renaissance. Necessity forced their adoption, which is why the first were nothing more than modified motorbike helmets.

At Glenelg Oval last week, I watched India’s Varun Aaron, who broke Stuart Broad’s nose with a bouncer in August, and Mohammed Shami pepper tailenders playing for a Cricket Australia XI with short-pitched balls. After one exchange, the umpire appeared to intervene, much to the displeasure of Aaron. ‘A sign of things to come?’ I wondered. Was this what it looked like – India rehearsing its retaliation?

The past 10 days have seen renewed debate on a range of issues that go to the heart of the game. Can helmets be improved? Should bouncers be banned? Would doing so fundamentally change the game?

Could the ball be softened or made more rubbery without losing its other characteristics?

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In an era in which materials science continues to yield miraculous new compounds, this seems an overlooked option. And for what it is worth, I am willing to be persuaded that bouncers should be outlawed.

In one sense, Hughes’ death has no lessons to offer, apart from those that seem most obvious. It was a freak accident. It was tragically unlucky. It was an awful reminder of our own mortality, and how death can strike even the young and talented. But there is a hollowness in these platitudes and it would be foolish for the game and its administrators not to take heed, because opportunities for sincere self-examination are rare in modern sport.

I have long thought that, while the various codes of football represent a greater threat to limbs (snapped bones, torn muscles etc), cricket is a greater threat to life. It is, after all, a form of asymmetric boxing. Bowlers need to know that cricket balls can kill and umpires should remind them when they forget. This would not have saved Phillip Hughes, but it may prevent players from sharing his fate in the future.

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