Is one-day cricket responsible?
Well, in one-day cricket most of the pitches are dry, and they take off most of the grass because they don’t want lateral movement. Australian pitches haven’t slowed down and they’ve always been the quickest ones in the world. People have taken off the grass and kept pitches dry, but they haven’t slowed down; you can still get enough pace and bounce out of them. Was fear of facing fast bowling a major factor in your time? Definitely. We didn’t have a lot of protection, so you would easily find out who didn’t have the guts to stand up and face the fire. How much difference has the helmet made? A huge difference. A lot of batsmen today, their technique is so faulty that if they were to have that 30 years ago, they’d be dead. They now take their eyes off the ball knowing that even if it hits them on the head, the helmet will protect them. If they didn’t grow up with helmets, they wouldn’t have developed such bad techniques and would keep their eyes on the ball. It’s a matter of the enviro
