Mumbai: It is rare to find a bowler wearing helmet while delivering the ball. On Tuesday, New Zealand’s Warren Barnes, while playing a Burger King Super Smash for Otago team against Canterbury Kings, at Molyneux Park, Alexandra came into bowl with a specially designed helmet.
This was confirmed by his team coach Rob Walter, who had a hand in designing this helmet.
“We developed it from a field hockey postman mask and added a section on the top to protect the top of the skull and face when the ball gets hit back at the bowler during his follow through,” he said.
The 26-year-old Barnes, who was born in South Africa, had also used this helmet last week in a match against Northern Knights at Seddon Park.
“Warren in particular is blinded from the batsman for a split second during his follow through and so we wanted to make sure that he was protected from the ball if got hit straight back at him.
“Last year a player from Nottinghamshire was hit on his head in his follow through and that could have potentially been very serious so we decided to do our best to protect Warren from the same thing happening”, the coach further added.
This year Luke Fletcher also had horror injury to his head while attending a follow-through catch from a straight drive hit by a batsman in England.
The Notts Outlaws bowler Luke Fletcher overshadowed their six-wicket NatWest T20 Blast defeat to Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston.
Fletcher’s first ball in the six-wicket T20 Blast defeat to Birmingham Bears at Edgbaston was driven straight back by Sam Hain and struck him on the head.
The fast bowler was taken to hospital to recover.
