Australian Cricketer Phil Hughes Was Wearing an 'Out-dated' Helmet

Australian batsman Phil Hughes is still critical after having been hit on the head by a bouncer. According to reports, he was wearing an out-dated helmet to protect his crown.

Hughes has been in an induced coma since he had undergone surgery in St. Vincent's Hospital on Tuesday. It is learned that the helmet Hughes was wearing did not have the latest design. If he wore a helmet with an updated design, he could have been saved from serious injury. A part of his head around the left ear was left unprotected as it was beneath the bottom part of the helmet, BBC reported. Safety design for helmets has improved over the years, but there is apparently a lot more improvement still required. Masuri, the company which made Hughes' helmet, confirmed that the NSW cricketer was not wearing the latest one. The UK manufacturer said that the latest model would have offered him "extra protection" in the area which had been left unprotected due to the older design.

Rene Ferdinands, head of cricket biomechanics research at the University of Sydney, suggested that skull caps could be a better option than helmets. A skull cap, apparently having a wider reach beyond the area covered by a helmet, is made of composite foam or similar other substance. According to a study, such materials are able to absorb up to 70 percent of a baseball impact. If a batsman wears a skull cap, it won't affect the mobility of the cricketer either. Wearing a skull cap is not something new in cricket even though it is extremely rare to find a batsman wearing such gears these days. English cricketer Mike Brearley experimented with skull caps in the mid-70s. Indian cricketing legend Sunil Gavaskar wore a similar head-gear later, Daily Mail reported.

Hughes, in the meantime, is still critical as he has undergone several scans since Tuesday. Australian team doctor Peter Brukner said that Hughes did not show any improvement yet. The Star reported that Hughes' condition had been "unchanged," according to Brukner's statement. Hughes was hit by a bouncer from fast bowler Sean Abbott. The incident took place at the Sydney Cricket Ground where the South Australia batsman was playing a match against New South Wales.

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au