When I was sixteen, I was playing in a school match on a tree-fringed oval in semi darkness. I saw a bouncer, thought to pull it, lost sight of the ball and committed the cardinal error of looking away. Next I knew I was sprawled on the ground having been hit in the back of my unhelmeted head.
Some concern was expressed, some ice fetched, and I stubbornly insisted on continuing to bat - it was a low-scoring game we eventually won. But I was hurt, and groggy afterwards. Nobody then thought about concussion. Still, I was sick when I got home, and a couple of days later my mum took me to the doctor, who recommended ‘taking it easy’ a few days. Different times, different habits.
Perhaps you have a story like this too; perhaps you have been turning it over in your mind these last couple of days, in response to the ghastly news of the death of seventeen-year-old Ben Austin in the routine environs of a wanger warm-up for a twilight match. An event like this touches everyone in cricket’s community - the women wore black armbands in Mumbai last night, and so will clubs in our association this weekend. It reminds us of randomness and chance - cricket’s defining characteristics. It reminds us of sporting risk and human vulnerability - the body, we are forced to acknowledge, cannot be completely protected. It reminds us of a parent’s gravest fear every time their child closes a door behind them, while knowing that those doors must be allowed to close if a child is ever to have their own life.
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