Should protective equipment be made mandatory for cricketers?

 Freak injuries have prematurely ended the careers of many a wicketkeeper, Boucher’s wounded left eye being the latest example.Shouldn’t protective equipment be made mandatory, wonders Vedam Jaishankar

One ball, culminating in a freak injury, was all it took to abort the career of one of the most successful wicketkeepers of all times.

Mark Boucher, the South African master gloveman, with a record 999 international dismissals (including one as an outfielder) in his 15-year exceptional career, was on course to be the first man to bag 1000 international dismissals (Adam Gilchrist, now retired, is second with  905) when tragedy struck  in what was essentially an inconsequential match against Somerset last week.

The career-terminating injury occurred when a ball from leg spinner Imran Tahir clean bowled Gemaal Hussain, with Boucher standing up to the stumps and wearing a cap instead of a helmet. The bail flew off the top of the stumps and excruciatingly smacked into the 35-year-old wicketkeeper’s left eye. He underwent a three-hour emergency operation, but the severity of the injury ensured that his chances of returning to normal were extremely slim.

Boucher, who had 147 Test caps, was hoping to complete 150 Tests against England and then announce his retirement from international cricket. Alas! That was not to be.

In these days of overt professionalism, one would have expected top level players to unabashedly embrace state-of-the-art protective equipment in their effort for sporting longevity. Unfortunately, as can be seen in Boucher’s case that was not to be.

Indeed, Boucher is not the first top level wicket-keeper to suffer this career-ending injury. And, unless excessive care is taken, he may well not be the last.  

In 1978, one of Karnataka’s top opening batsmen Sanjay Desai suffered a similar fate when he kept wickets in the absence of the regular wicket-keeper Syed Kirmani. Sanjay was best known for the record opening unbeaten 451-run partnership with former India all-rounder Roger Binny in the 1977 Ranji Trophy tie against Kerala in Chickmagalur. Sanjay had scored 218 while Binny hit 211 in the record effort.  The tall, lean Sanjay was an outstanding close-in fielder who poached a number of catches off spin twins EAS Prasanna and BS Chandrashekar. He had played for Indian Schools and Indian Universities, besides being a regular for a Karnataka team that also boasted of GR Vishwanath, Brijesh Patel, Sudhakar Rao and Kirmani.

With the top players away on India duty, Sanjay donned the gloves in that fateful game against Andhra in 1978. Towards the end of the match the Andhra tailender was bowled through the gate by a chinaman from Vijayakrishna and the bail flew and hit Sanjay on the left eye. Still in his mid-20s, Sanjay was lost to the game forever.

Years later, in 2000, a similar fate awaited India wicketkeeper Saba Karim. Saba had played one Test and 34 ODIs. In Dhaka, in the Asia Cup, while  standing up and keeping to Anil Kumble, he was struck on the right eye – an injury that finished a rather promising career.

Another wicketkeeper, Parthiv Patel was luckier. A Kumble delivery smashed into his face and left him with a bloodied nose, rather than hampered eye-sight. Interestingly, by the time Parthiv kept for India, wicketkeepers had taken to using protective helmets while standing up to the stumps. But Parthiv, like Boucher more recently, was really being foolhardy by not opting for it.

In fact, in modern cricket, it has become vital for wicketkeepers to don a plethora of protective gear.  Their first fear is for their fingers, palms and wrist  and this has seen all sorts of  equipment come into play.

Years ago, former India batsman TE Srinivasan, while reminiscing on the wicketkeeping skills of Kirmani, said, “In the 70s, we played Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy matches on some of the worst pitches. Teams used to get bundled out for 120 to 150 runs. Sometimes even these scores were winning ones!

“On such lousy pitches, it was a nightmare batting against Chandra (B S Chandrasekhar, India’s legendary match-winning bowler, used to bowl his brand of leg spin, top spin and googly at a terrific pace). If one delivery shot through from a length at ankle height, the next one from the same length had to be fended off from the face. Batsmen with a bat in hand, pads and all sorts of protective equipment used to be petrified at playing Chandra on such pitches. But there was Kiri, standing up to the wickets and collecting the ball in all sorts of acrobatic style.

“My own feeling is you had to be mad or absolutely brilliant to stand up to Chandra on such pitches, and without the benefit of helmets. To this day, I do not know whether Kiri was mad or brilliant. Why, even now when I think of batting against Chandra on such pitches I break into a sweat.”

The equipment, pitches, and protective gear in the game have progressed substantially since those days.  But with batsmen trying out various innovative shots, including the sweep, reverse sweep, switch-hitting, Dil-scoop, etc, the wicketkeeper’s vision actually is curtailed and thus possibility of the ball hitting him is very high. Even deflections off the pads are difficult to follow when standing up. Thus it is high time that some of the protective gear were made mandatory for wicketkeepers. Else we could have more careless injuries that accounted for the careers of Boucher, Karim and Desai.