‘Use laws to protect tailenders’

UMPIRES should invoke cricket’s laws and protect England’s tailenders from Australia’s relentless bodyline bowling in the ongoing Ashes series, former England captain Michael Atherton said.

Australia have reclaimed the urn with an unassailable 3-0 lead in the five-test series, their fiery pace battery of Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins singeing England’s frontline batsmen in Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.

The pace trio have not spared the tailenders. England’s No 10 batsman Jake Ball was subjected to a bouncer barrage in the Brisbane opener and No 11 James Anderson suffered a sickening blow to the side of his helmet in the third test at Perth.

Atherton conceded Australia were clearly the better team and that any side with such ammunition would have attacked the tailenders for practical and psychological reasons.

“That said, I did wonder aloud at the time why the umpires were so reluctant to act to protect Ball,” Atherton wrote in The Times newspaper.

The law states that short-pitched bowling is dangerous if the umpire considers it likely to inflict physical injury when measured against a batsman’s skill.

“Test cricket or not, the law and the playing conditions are there to protect batsmen incapable of protecting themselves,” Atherton said.

“Cricket is an odd game in that it has three distinct disciplines and, within that, you have the unusual situation where someone who is totally useless in one area can face a world-class performer in another – with potentially harmful consequences.

“Batsmen who cannot bowl are not required to bowl to great players, but the opposite is obviously the case – precisely why the law is framed as it is, as built-in protection for the incompetent.

“No one wants to see the game sanitised, but the law is there for a reason. The umpires should make use of it,” Atherton, who played 115 tests from 1989 to 2001, said.