EVERY player to get concussion test

ALL professional cricketers in England will be offered baseline testing for concussion ahead of the 2017 season as part of extensive ECB research into head injuries.

The first sets of tests have taken place at county clubs in the past fortnight. Players have had cognitive tests — cricket’s version of ‘Maddocks Questions’, such as ‘where did you play your last game?’ and ‘how many runs did you score?’ — as well as having their visual processing, co-ordination and balance checked.

The results will provide a guide of their ‘normal’ abilities for comparison in cases of suspected concussion. Twelve months ago, in the same week as the first anniversary of Australian batsman Phillip Hughes’ death, the ECB produced an 18-page document detailing steps to be taken by physios when a suspected concussion occurs.

It also introduced the mandatory six-day rule for those diagnosed positively, empowering medics to prevent players returning to action for a minimum of six days. Last summer, 15 cases of concussion were recorded in top-level cricket in England, exactly the same number as in 2015.

In 2016, all batsmen, plus wicketkeepers standing up to the stumps and close fielders, were forced to wear helmets for the first time in more than 120 years of first-class cricket.

Logging players’ normal capabilities represents the next stage of their own research, in conjunction with PhD students from Loughborough and Birmingham Universities.

ECB chief medical officer Nick Peirce said: ‘Then anyone who suffers a concussion goes away and has a special type of MRI.

‘In fact, anyone who has a helmet strike will have these baseline tests and we will try to learn whether helmet strikes without a defined concussion are producing any impact on people. Computer modelling will show us the impact of a cricket ball on a skull and a brain.

‘We need to work towards a state of the game whereby no head injuries occur at all. That’s the ideal world.’