(^) Daily Mail, Monday, August 19, 2019
72 THE ASHES SECOND TEST
BUMBLE
AT THE TEST
By DAVID LLOYD
EDGE OF THE SEAT STUFF
THAT spell on Saturday! As you
know, there are some
hard-bitten old pros in the
commentary box, but
everyone sat up and took
notice when Jofra Archer
steamed in from the Pavilion
End. It’s the thrill of fast
bowling and Mark Wood put
in a similar spell in St Lucia.
MORE WARNER WOE
AUSTRALIA knew what was coming
in the second innings and Archer
didn’t disappoint. He extended
David Warner’s miserable series,
then removed Usman Khawaja. But
well played Cameron Bancroft and
Marnus Labuschagne for getting
through to tea. That was brave
against a bloke who produces a
bouncer out of nowhere.
BUTTLER’S BETTER SERVICE
THAT was a very important
innings for Jos Buttler (right).
His partnership with Ben Stokes
was vital on the last morning to
ensure Australia didn’t get into
the game. Two very attacking
players were very watchful,
which enabled England to
have a real go at Australia’s
bowling later on.
WHEN CRICKET IS
COMPELLING... IT’S
T
he first ball took
off into the strato-
sphere. So high
that umpire Aleem
Dar called it wide.
The second struck Marnus
Labuschagne full in the grille and
knocked him off his feet. he sprang
back up, over-eager like a boxer
desperate for the referee not to
stop the fight.
And Lord’s burst into life. Staid,
conservative Lord’s. The home of
cricket. And not just the cheap
seats, either, not that there are too
many of those.
All those stuffed shirts in their
egg and bacon ties, the ones who
appreciate the subtlety of a deft
finger spinner, or hark back to the
exquisite stroke play of David
Gower. They were in it, too.
That’s the irony. That’s the
conundrum for cricket in 2019. We
know so much about head trauma
now. We know its long-term conse-
quence, the terrible price it can
exact. Our most recent memories
contain the knowledge of at least
one horrific fatality at the crease
and the uncontradictable counsel
of the medical profession.
And yet, when cricket is at its
most compelling, its most exhila-
rating, when we, the audience,
cannot bear to turn away, it is
bloodsport.
Jofra Archer is hunting Austral-
ian batsmen and we are fine with
that. We revel in it. The reason
Labuschagne was in the middle
dodging 90mph projectiles was
because Steve Smith could not.
he had been felled by Archer the
day before and had woken to the
effects of concussion.
‘headache, dizziness, feeling
slowed down, feeling in a fog,
drowsiness...’ read the medical
report. Labuschagne was his
replacement under a new ICC pro-
tocol, the first of his kind. Yet two
balls into his innings it was feared
the concussion substitute might
require a concussion substitute.
The doctors were on, checking
for damage. In other sports, the
potential for head trauma is caus-
ing fundamental rule changes.
Rugby might outlaw tackles above
waist height, football is discussing
banning headers in youth games.
In cricket, the prospect of seri-
ous, physical damage is part of the
show, perhaps the best part, and
bowling at the head remains a
perfectly legitimate tactic.
Chin music, the professionals call
it, laughingly. When england did
not possess a bowler capable of
striking an Australian on the
noggin, this absence was widely
bemoaned.
Archer has swiftly achieved
superstar status simply because
he’s dangerous. his presence
electrifies. More than the World
Cup win, more than the Ashes
occasion, it is the prospect of
seeing Archer in full flow that is
packing them in at Lord’s. They
come to see who he can scare,
who he can skittle, who he can —
whisper it — hurt.
This is cricket’s awkward truth.
Stuart Broad is quite quick, so too
Chris Woakes. Yet when any eng-
land bowler other than Archer was
throwing them down yesterday —
certainly until a genuine chance of
winning the game emerged in early
evening — it felt anti-climatic.
It was the same in Australia in
the winter of 2013-14. There was
barely an Australian bowler who
wasn’t causing england problems,
yet the man who turned those are-
nas into feral pits of hostility was
Mitchell Johnson. If he could have
bowled every ball, as baseball
pitchers do, that would have
suited the locals just fine.
Yet how to resolve this question
of knowledge, emotion and per-
sonal freedom? No lover of cricket
would take the short ball out of
the game and nobody forces a
given what we know, does not wear
as much protection as he could
and persuaded the medical team
to let him bat on after being struck.
Some of that, at least, is a matter
of personal freedom.
had Smith not displayed the
most obvious symptoms of neuro-
logical impairment short of
appearing at breakfast dressed as
a pirate, he might have played yes-
terday, too. It is that sort of game.
Full of tales of brave men like
Brian Close, who fielded in silly
positions — literally — in the days
before cranial protection.
When television faces the dead
time of rain delays during an Ashes
series, there is always plenty of
genial reminiscing around the
feared Australian pace attack of
Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson.
This invariably leads to David
Lloyd reliving a particularly sav-
age blow below the belt in Perth.
‘Lose the pain, but keep the
swelling,’ he is said to have told
england’s doctors.
One day Smith and Labuschagne
might also turn the last 48 hours
into an amusing anecdote, too.
So, while nobody wants anybody
hurt, they remain happy to hand
those circumstances to fate. On
Saturday, fate decreed that Smith
wouldn’t be able to take any fur-
ther part in this match. And the
next? This is where it becomes
complicated.
For all the focus on concussion in
sport, what becomes apparent
when an event such as this hap-
pens is that there are no hard and
fast rules, no procedure, nothing
in stone. All governing bodies
claim to have a concussion proto-
col, but few are prepared to tell an
athlete or his bosses to sit one out.
even World Rugby, who speak of
mandatory seven-day absences,
then descend into caveats about
an ‘advanced level of concussion
care’ which basically translates as
‘it’s up to you’. Adults need to have
received ‘medical advice that the
one-week rest period is not
required’.
This is where cricket resides, too.
The third Test at headingley will
start less than five days after
Archer struck Smith, yet Austral-
ia’s gun batsman is already hinting
at playing. Cricket Australia’s
statement read ‘the short turna-
round is not in his favour’. But
that’s not the same as ordering
the prolonged rest many neuro-
surgeons believe is necessary.
If not at headingley, Smith will
return at Old Trafford next month.
And the first time Archer bears
down on him there will be that
crackle of excitement and antici-
pation because this, after all, is
what we’ve come to see.
And we don’t want the batsman
hurt and we’re very worried about
concussion but, let’s be honest, if
you can’t chuck it at someone’s
head, it’s just not cricket.
THE ASHES
MARTIN
SAMUEL
Chief Sports Writer
reports from
Lord’s
LAWRENCE BOOTH’S
RATINGS PAGE 71
Chin music: dangerous Archer deliveries strike
Smith (above) and Labuschagne (right) at Lord’s
GETTY IMAGES
person to play. If bouncers were
outlawed, what of boxing, a sport
that deliberately targets the head
with the aim of rendering an oppo-
nent unconscious?
Yet, knowing what we know, will
there one day come a time when
all of it — chin music, chin punches,
heading the ball, ice hockey fights,
the battering that is part of rug-
by’s codes, is considered as curi-
ous as sending kids up chimneys.
It is not that people want to see
batsmen hurt, either. When it hap-
pens it looks, and feels, appalling.
Yet the conditions in which that
might happen, the bowler tearing
in, the batsman bobbing and weav-
ing to avoid harm, maybe taking
the challenge on, making a decent
score as Labuschagne did yester-
day, maybe even saving the Test
— this is cricket’s essence.
Not even the tragedy that befell
Phillip hughes, fatally struck by a
bouncer in 2014, has sated the
appetite for carnage. In the after-
math of that gruesome event,
some well-meaning folk spoke of
curbing short deliveries entirely, or
playing with a softer ball. They
were laughed out of town; most
loudly, by cricket’s professionals.
Smith, whose misjudgment on
Saturday could have killed him
Chin music: dangerousArcher deliveries strike
lily
(lily)
#1