Sachin Tendulkar has been egging on the authorities to make the use of helmet mandatory for batsmen at a professional level as incidents of a batsman getting hit on the head, irrespective of facing a fast bowler or not, has been on the rise.
On Tuesday during a crucial encounter between Sunrisers Hyderabad and Mumbai Indians, the Indian cricket icon pointed out another incident when his fellow Mumbai cricketer Dhawal Kulkarni was hit at the back of the head off a throw from an SRH fielder from the deep while he was trying to steal two runs
Sachin shared the video of the incident while being thankful to god that Dhawal was wearing the helmet. The 47-year-old retire cricketer further pointed out that this serves as another example why helmets need to be made mandatory.
In the video shared, it was clearly evident that such was the impact of the ball landing on Dhawal’s back head that the padding behind his helmet came off as soon as it came in contact with the ball.
Earlier, Sachin, who rarely batted without a helmet during his playing days, tweeted a video of an incident from an October 24 Indian Premier League (IPL) match between Kings XI Punjab and SunRisers Hyderabad.
During the game, Vijay Shankar was hit on the face by a throw from KXIP fielder Nicholas Pooran while the SRH batsman was reaching the crease to complete a run.
"The game has become faster but is it getting safer? Recently we witnessed an incident which could've been nasty. Be it a spinner or pacer, wearing a HELMET should be MANDATORY for batsmen at professional levels," said Tendulkar alongwith the video.
He then tagged Team India head coach Ravi Shastri in another tweet and said, "This also reminded me of the time when you got hit after top-edging a full toss bowled by Mr Gavaskar during an exhibition game. That could've been a grave injury too but thankfully wasn't!"
In recent times, there have been demands to use helmets with extra protection like neck guard after Australian batsman Phil Hughes died in a Sheffield Shield game in November 2014. The batsman was hit below the helmet on the left upper side of his neck by a delivery from Sean Abbott.
Companies have also begun to redesign helmets.
(With inputs from IANS)
