The menace of the bouncer

How to tackle the bouncer in the game of Cricket? The early batsmen, especially the openers have the dangers of cricket to contend with and it requires closer scrutiny as to how quickly the batsman is able to respond to the speed and flight of the ball.

The diagram shows the batsman’s view of a fast bouncer. The ball left the bowler’s hand at a speed of 96 miles per hour. It’s speed as it nears the batsman is about 80 miles per hour, the ball having been slowed by air resistance and the bounce. The positions of the ball have been predicted using a computer and there agree well with speeds measured in actual play. The computers diagram shows us the apparent size of the ball at intervals of 20 ms all the way from the bowler.

It has been known for more than a century that there is a time delay when we respond to a signal. The driver of a racing car, waiting on the starting grid, watched the starter. There is a measurable delay between the appearance of the starting signal and the driver taking action to get his car on the move.

The signal from his eye progresses to his brain, his brain sets about organising a response, and a signal passes from his brain to the foot. By for the majority of the total time is taken up by the brain organising the response.

The time intervals which are typical in human reactions are less than one second. For convenience these times are quoted in milliseconds. Since 1,000 milliseconds make one second, 500 ms is one half second and 250 ms is one quarter second.

Typical valued of the 'simple' reaction time, that is response to a signal, are in the range 140 ms to 400 ms.

An extensive review of many investigations in this arena has revealed that the really top-line batsmen may only require as little as 120 ms to view the ball and obtain sufficient information to predict its subsequent flight path accurately. For players of lesser ability, there is likely to be a wide spectrum of times required for this, but there is some evidence that time intervals of around 320 ms are common.

The extremely short time required by the expert is likely to be the result of a combination of a natural ability to process information rapidly, and learned anticipation. When the reason, the difference between these times when facing a very fast delivery can be extremely important.

Quick thinkers

As the batsman wants at the create, facing a fast bowler running up, he anticipates that the ball will probably bounce somewhere on the pitch. However, he does not know whether the ball will be short or of full length. Recently, much has been said and written about short pitched bowling, with the number of bouncers bowled per over being supposedly limited in some matches. There have been proposals that a line should be drawn across the pitch to mark the shortest allowable delivery, that the bowler's run-up should be limited or the pitch extended.

The time interval between the ball leaving the bowler's hand and hitting the pitch is 240ms, or less than a quarter of a second.

After the bounce, the ball takes a further 250 ms to reach the batsman so the top-class batsman, with his very fast reactions, has time to assess the speed and height of the bounce.

Now imagine a average cricketer facing the same delivers, with a reaction time of up to 320ms! It becomes clear immediately why short pitched deliveries can be so dangerous. By the time the batsman has realised that a short one is on the way, the ball has already bounced and is nearly outs to him.

The ball is only 16 feet away and approaching rapidly. After the bounce there is simply not enough time for him to asses the height of the ball, and any avoiding action must be taken on the basis of observation of the ball before it bounced in other worlds must be made by sheer guesswork.

The results in 'ducking and hoping', and has often caused batsmen to be hit by deliveries which would have passed by harmlessly.

It is clearly why protective helmets have been introduced, although some players have such fast reactions that they feel the helmet to be unnecessary.

The batsman taking avoiding action should keep his eyes firmly on the ball and move his head aside, to allow the ball to pass harmlessly past his ear.

Reaction time itself appears to be a physical characteristic, different in each individual. However, within limits, practice and experience have been shown to be effective in improving the ability to perceive the line of the ball, but most important is the ability to anticipate the character of the delivery to shorten the reaction time.