It was 14 May 2015 when Cricket Australia chief executive Officer James Sutherland announced the independent review on Philip Hughes death. Now, after almost one year this report will be released on Wednesday. CA asked the review committee to examine and make recommendations on a number of matters relating to CA-sanctioned tournaments, competitions, matches and official training sessions.
QC David Curtain , a former chairman of the Victorian Bar council and president of the Australian Bar association was leading this review committee and few of the key recommendations by this panel will be Making the wearing of helmets compulsory for batsmen, close-in fielders and net coaches.
After Philip Hughes incident England and Wales Cricket Board announced strict helmet guidelines which provided extra protection on neck. However, ECB players including Test Captain Alastair Cook have shown their discomfort in using new helmets. Similarly, it won’t be easy for Cricket Australia to implement all the recommendations in the report.
England opener Nick Compton was a close friend and former flatmate of Hughes, but has already spoken out about new helmet measures as being over the top.
“For me there are so many rules and regulations now. Health and safety and all these regulations – they do my head in.
“You look at the Phil Hughes incident. It was well publicized that he was one of my best friends and I’m always thinking of him, but what happened was a freak accident.
Cricket is a traditional game and like Compton not many will accept these changes easily and rightly so because incidents like Hughes have rarely happened in history of cricket but life is far more important than cricket and their shouldn’t be any harm in taking a step by which we can minimize chances of such sad incidents.
David Curtain QC is one of Australia”s leading law practitioners and is highly qualified to lead the review which is being undertaken with the support of the Hughes family and thus one things is certain that their recommendations will be based on amount of actual research they have done in last 365 days.
