The spectacular sight of bails flying through the air as a jubilant bowler celebrates might not be seen much longer, after cricket’s lawmaker approved the use of tethers to protect players from injury.
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), guardian of the laws of cricket, has taken steps to protect wicketkeepers from the sort of horrific eye injury that ended the career of South Africa’s Mark Boucher, by ratifying the use of tethers to limit the distance that bails can travel when the wicket is broken. The MCC has altered law 8.3, following an approach from companies in South Africa and the UK who submitted designs for tethers attaching bails to the stumps, without limiting their ability to be dislodged. It involves two holes drilled into the off and leg stumps.
“If it prevents someone losing their eyesight, it’s got to be worth considering,” Fraser Stewart, the MCC’s laws manager, told ESPNcricinfo. – Stuff
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