Cricket plans substitutes for injured players
ECB to discuss allowing injury replacements Fletcher joins call for protective headgear
English cricket is exploring the introduction of injury substitutes for the first time, and testing is being carried out on skullcaps to protect bowlers and umpires from serious head injuries.
The England and Wales Cricket Board’s cricket committee will in September discuss allowing teams to substitute an injured player, such as one suffering from concussion, that rules him out of the rest of the match.
The idea follows on from Cricket Australia trialling the use of concussion substitutes in state cricket. The ECB will monitor the success of that before deciding whether to copy the initiative in professional cricket here.
It is an arcane aspect of cricket that if a player is seriously injured, teams can only replace him with a fielding substitute and are left one short of a batsman or bowler.
On Saturday, Nottinghamshire’s Luke Fletcher was hospitalised with a nasty head injury sustained when Warwickshire batsman Sam Hain smashed the ball straight back at him. Under the proposals, Nottinghamshire would have replaced Fletcher with a substitute.
At the end of the season, the ECB’S cricket committee will discuss the pros and cons of introducing substitutes, such as the logistics of constantly having a spare player on standby and whether it would be unfair to limit them to concussions.
For the proposal to become law, it would require a change in the ECB’S playing regulations, which would need to be rubber stamped by the full executive board.
“The ECB cricket committee will consider the issue in September and look closely at the precise logistical considerations of introducing substitutes to cricket,” said an ECB spokesman. “We will have a thorough discussion about how and if they can be implemented in the first-class game.”
David Leatherdale, the chief executive of the Professional Cricketers’ Association, sits on the cricket committee and his union backs the move.
“The PCA and players are supportive of concussion substitutes, which are presently under review with the ECB and its health and safety committee, with research taking place around present presented cases,” he said. “They have done and are doing some trials in Australia and those will be discussed further by the ECB after the 2017 season here.”
Fletcher’s injury was shocking and he was lucky not to have been more seriously hurt. The danger of players being hit by balls struck by powerful batsmen, particularly in Twenty20 cricket, has led the ECB to speak to other sports, particularly in America, about protective headgear. The ECB is at the early stages of its testing programme at Loughborough University but is looking at a range of protective headgear made from smart polymers that can absorb blows and prevent serious injury.
So far, the focus has been on developing a lightweight head protector for umpires and coaches working in the nets but Fletcher’s injury shows the need to investigate similar headwear for bowlers.
“There are a number of different products we need to compare and contrast and we are at the early stages of that process,” said an ECB spokesman.
“There is no suggestion we will see this in the professional game just yet but in the long term, it is something we are taking very seriously.
“We have a duty of care to the players and we need to look into how they can be better protected.”
Fletcher told the BBC that he no longer bowls in the nets when Nottinghamshire batsmen are preparing for a Twenty20, match due to the risk of being hit by a ball fired straight back at him.
Bowlers are more vulnerable than umpires simply because their follow-through takes them closer to the batsmen.
“I don’t do it any more. We have had so many close calls in the 10 years I have been playing because you don’t have time to move at all,” said Fletcher. “Some of the lads have a bowl in the nets but for me it is too frightening. Some of the balls are coming back at 100mph.”
He hopes bowlers are given more protection. The problem is devising a skullcap that does not inhibit a bowler’s action and is comfortable to wear.
“At the hospital, they said to me that I could have got hit on the temple. I got away with it and the doctors said I dodged a bullet.”