ICC should revamp safety regulations for helmets after horrific Broad injury

Following the growing number of facial injuries on the cricket field, ICC needs to revamp the safety regulations for cricket helmets. On the third day of the fourth Test between England and India at Old Trafford, England pacer Stuart Broad suffered a horrific nose injury while trying to pull a delivery off India’s Varun Aaron. [caption id=“attachment_1662779” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Stuart Broad edges the ball that gets stuck in the grill of his helmet from a delivery from India’s Varun Aaron during the fourth Test at Old Trafford. Reuters[/caption] The ball took the edge and sneaked in between the grille and peak of the helmet and hit him smack on the nose. He retired hurt straight away. Later, medical reports confirmed that Broad had suffered a fractured nose. Broad wears the helmet made by Ayrtek Cricket and the manufacturers immediately sent out a press release saying they are investigation on the incident. “Most importantly we would firstly like to wish Stuart a speedy recovery from his injury. At Ayrtek, player safety is our number one priority. Any incident of this nature happening to a player, particularly when wearing our product, is something we take extremely seriously. We will be investigating the incident by gathering as much information as possible and working closely with the ECB medical team to asses the likely cause. In 6 years of manufacturing cricket helmets, this is the first injury of this type to have happened to a player wearing an Ayrtek helmet. All of our helmets undergo rigorous safety testing in accordance to BSI standards.” This is not the first case of a facial injury caused due to the ball squeezing in between the grille and the visor. A few weeks ago, Somerset’s Craig Kieswetter was hit on the face by Northamptonshire seamer David Willey and the former had to undergo a surgery on his eye socket. https://twitter.com/kiesy_22/status/488333804277600256 A few years ago, Brendon McCullum suffered similar kind of nose injury when he was hit by a Brett Lee bouncer after missing his pull.

As reported by Alloutcricket in July 2013, an investigation was conducted by Dr Craig Ranson of the ICC Medical Panel under the title ‘Batting head injury in professional cricket: a systematic video analysis of helmet safety characteristics’ and of the 35 injuries analysed, 10 occurred due to the penetration of the gap between helmet peak and the faceguard. Following the increasing case of the facial injuries, the ICC needs to change the safety regulations of cricket helmets. Click here to read the full report.