'You can’t be a fast bowler and not bowl short balls at people'

Times Media

TELFORD VICE, Cape Town

THE young fast bowler whose bouncer killed a batsman in a club match in Alice last October was encouraged to bowl aggressively in the wake of the incident - a fact that will strike a chord with a cricket world still in shock over the death of Phil Hughes last week.

Hughes was batting in a Sheffield Shield match last Tuesday when he was struck on the neck by a bouncer. He died in a Sydney hospital on Thursday from bleeding on the brain.

The ball that killed him was delivered by Sean Abbott, a 22-year-old fast bowler. In Alice in October, Darryn Randall was felled by a bouncer bowled by Mbulelo Budaza, who had turned 20 seven weeks previously.

“A psychologist spent time with him to get him over this,” former first-class player Greg Hayes, now a Cricket SA development consultant based in East London, said.

“(The psychologist’s) job was to try and get the guy to bowl short deliveries again, because that’s his career. You can’t be a fast bowler and not bowl short balls at people.

“(The psychologist) did a very good job, because at the (subsequent) Colts Week, Budaza pinned somebody on the head. The guy went down, but fortunately he got up again.”

The International Cricket Council (ICC) declined to say whether bouncer regulations or equipment standards - Hughes was wearing a helmet - would be revisited.

“We have said nothing on this subject as the timing, due to the circumstances, is not right,” an ICC spokesperson said.

However, a letter of empathy and support from Randall’s club, Old Selbornians in East London, addressed to “the Hughes family, Cricket Australia and team-mates” that has been taken to Australia, hopes that “changes can be made to better the game we all love”.

Rebel-era batsman Kevin McKenzie is revered for never having worn a helmet and for playing the hook and pull strokes better than his peers.

One of the “two or three times” he was struck on the head, McKenzie said, happened while he was facing former England fast bowler Neal Radford - who hit McKenzie on the button on the crown of his cap, an indicator of sound batting technique that may have been lost in the modern game.

“If I was going to miss the ball, I would bend my head forward and down,” McKenzie said. “You didn’t want the ball hitting you on the temple.”

A hallmark of McKenzie’s hook shot was that his face remained pointed down the pitch well into his follow through. Last Tuesday, Hughes turned his head to the side in taking evasive action.

“Most of the time players were hit, they would have turned their heads sideways,” McKenzie said. “Then you would hear that sickening crunch.”

But McKenzie did not favour further limitations on bouncers.

“As sad as this is you can’t change the game; it would spoil it.”

Former SA batsman Jimmy Cook suggested helmets could be part of the problem.

“I think more players get hit on the head today than ever,” Cook said. “When you didn’t have a helmet on, you knew - ‘I’d better make sure I don’t get hit’.”

However, Cook did not feel cricket needed to change because of Hughes’ death.

“You just get on with it,” he said. “I don’t think anything needs to be done.”