Tackling bouncer 'head-on'

It could be that the bowlers are faster and more accurate than when I played and so the batsmen are struggling to deal with them,” said Sunil Gavaskar in response to a query from DH.

The question posed was: why are batsmen getting hit on the helmet and suffering from concussions far more than their predecessors?

In the ongoing series between India and Australia alone two players have suffered concussions - Cameron Green and Ravindra Jadeja - and a few more have taken a knock on their heads without serious consequences. Prior to the start of the Test series, Aussie opener Will Pucovski’s debut was delayed as he suffered one of his many concussions during a practice match against India.

Gavaskar, who had to face Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Andy Roberts and Colin Croft all in a day when playing the dangerous West Indies side of the 80s, was obviously making magnanimous observation if not tongue-in-cheek comment.

There is no evidence - numerical or otherwise - to suggest that bowlers from this era are faster and more accurate than the ones Gavaskar encountered 30 years ago. Even if, few men - let alone entire bowling units - are as intimidating as those, who with their languid actions were gunning for your head despite knowing that a clean hit could mean irreparable damage if not death.

“I still have a hearing problem in my left ear because of a Michael Holding bouncer,” says Anshuman Gaekwad, now chuckling at the thought of the 75-76 tour of West Indies. “I had to have two surgeries when I returned to India.”

Barring the likes of Gaekwad and Nari Contractor, who didn’t return to international cricket after being struck by a Charlie Griffith bouncer during India’s tour of West Indies in 1962, or K Srikkanth, who was struck by a Wasim Akram delivery on his head and needed several stitches to fix the damaged part, there aren’t too many serious instances of batsmen getting hit, at least in an Indian context.

World over too, batsmen were simply better at avoiding a blow to the head. One must remember that these were times sans helmets so batsmen were fully aware that if they didn’t play or leave instinctively, they were headed to the hospital. Indecision wasn’t an option until helmets became commonplace in the aftermath of the Kerry Packer’s World Series.

While the eras which came on the heels of these aforementioned events still had remnants of a technique now-considered archaic, the T20 generation laid self-preservation to rest and attacked the ball with disdain from behind layer upon layer of protective gear.

“Improvement in protection played a big role in this shift in attitude,” says Australian legend Glenn McGrath. “Batsmen back then had a different technique and they were well-versed in the art of leaving a ball. Now, we rarely see that happen because people aren’t taught it and they don’t learn to appreciate it. In the old days, you either got inside the ball or you got under the ball. You didn’t line up a pull or a hook every time the ball is short. Which is why you see players getting hit so often these days.”

Chandu Borde, who witnessed Contractor being struck from the dressing room and even donated blood for his captain’s subsequent surgery, broke down the technique his contemporaries used to overcome the likes of Griffith.

“A lot of them are playing too deep in the crease. It gives the ball time to create that awkward angle,” he starts off. “Their (the new generation) right leg (for right-handers) goes right behind and then they come forward. We used to stand up and smother the bounce, so to speak. Our first reaction was to go to the off-side and then back.

“We were very, very watchful because we knew we had one chance with a well-targeted short ball. Either you decide in that split-second or you will have blood spilling out of your ears and your nose,” he says, paying bloody homage to the gnarly Contractor incident.

Gaekwad, Borde’s junior by a couple of decades, spoke of the same technique to counter the rising ball, but the former Indian coach also insisted that it was about mindset.

“Technique is a concern these days,” says the many remember as ‘The Great Wall’ for his dogged approach. “Few batsmen get into a good position to leave the ball, let alone play at it. You need to be steady and not predict it. You need to learn to react and not act. Their fundamentals aren’t solid enough. More than that, this game is about concentration, judgement and above all determination. You don’t see guys like (Rahul) Dravid anymore.”

While quizzed about the devolution in playing the short ball, almost everybody spoken to felt that limited-overs cricket had a part to play.

It wasn’t as obvious when 50-over cricket became an attraction in the 80s because those entering cricket at the time were still committed to Tests. But the birth of T20 cricket in the early 2000s forced batsmen to change their perspective. It tends to happen when an entire batting unit has only 120 deliveries to baulk their bank accounts!

“You become opportunistic when you are focussed on limited-overs cricket,” says Gaekwad. “You have to make the most of the chances you get in this fast-paced world of cricket so every ball is gold. Imagine leaving a short ball in T20 cricket!”

The experts insist that T20’s devil-may-care school of thought slipped into Tests and thus a rise in batsmen losing shape. This could explain why even arguably the best batsmen of the current generation - Steven Smith - was laid to the ground by Jofra Archer not long ago.

The likes of Gavaskar and Sir Vivian Richards - the best in their generation and some - rarely, if ever, got struck. This when bowlers weren’t restricted to two bouncers an over in Tests and when helmets were still considered a distraction.

The International Cricket Council, a full five years after Philip Hughes’ horrific death at the hands of a Sean Abbott bouncer, ceded to pressure and made way for concussion substitutes.

As fate would have it, Australia benefitted from the 2019 rule as Marnus Labuschagne became the first concussion sub in the history of sport, replacing Smith in the same Test as the one where he was hit on the neck by Archer.

Interestingly enough, Borde noted that his contemporaries often complained of concussion-like symptoms but rarely paid heed to the discomfort. “We didn’t know what it was. We played through nausea and the pain. Sometimes we weren’t even sure of what we were seeing. We had a job to do and we did it,” says the octogenarian.

Perhaps, there is no solution to a problem so innate to the millennials but better protection. It does, however, give you more of a reason to appreciate the sight of a helmet-less Richards pull the ball out of the stadium while still chewing gum.

Batsmen were just made different back then and we’ll never see their likes again.