Is bouncer a lethal weapon again?

The best example of such a delivery came from Mohammed Shami in Mohali and the batsman was Chris Woakes in the second innings. It came as a surprise that an Indian did that on a cricket field and Woakes was rattled for sure with that delivery which knocked off the protective stuffing inside the helmet. Shami did that again to Woakes and got a top edge from his bat. India were subjected to a bouncer torture in 1975 at Kingston by Michael Holding and Co, leaving Biahn Bedi to declare his second innings in protest at 90odd for five, with 10 or 15 ahead overall. 

This brings back the issue of bouncers in cricket since Phillip Hughes was struck by a short, fast delivery from Sean Abbott in November 2014 in a domestic game in Sydney. The Australia Test batsman died two days later, having nver regained consciousness, and cricket took a back seat as a community mourned the loss. And then came the questions. Was the bouncer, a well-known part of cricket’s history, no longer safe for batsmen to face? Analysis from cricket statisticians shows there has been very little difference in the use of bouncers before and after Hughes’ death - and that in Tests involving Australia, the number has risen slightly. 

Studies were conducted by looking at balls which pitched 10 or more metres from the stumps, which is a rough estimate of in tention to bowl a bouncer. And they revelaed a marginal reduction in quantity after Hughes’ death. The second set looked at deliveries which bounced 1.5 metres or more once it arrived at the batsman - in other words, the chest, throat or head-directed balls. With these, we saw a negligible decrease from 1.68 bouncers per Test to 1.62. In Tests involving Australia, the number rose slightly from 1.65 per Test to 1.68 - a small increase at a time when their seam bowling has been the area where they have developed the most. Criticism that the bouncer was against the ‘spirit’ of cricket led to the International Cricket Council limiting the number of bouncers in a Test match to one per batsman, per over in 1991.