Cricket + American TV = Science?

There are two English language terrestrial television channels in Hong Kong and both try to make the most of their meagre budgets by filling their schedules with earnest local reporting and cheapo-Discovery channel sciencey fluff. Late one night last week, feeling a little worse for wear after a few post-150-run-defeat beers, I was watching said fluff and discovered much to my astonishment that cricket is the most dangerous ball sport in the world. Fact.

The program was called Sport Science and this episode competed different sports against each other. Which goes fastest - a well-hit ice hockey puck or golf ball? What hurts more - a rugby tackle without pads or an American football tackle with pads? And most interestingly for us, which is most dangerous - baseball or cricket? Baseball was represented by a rookie pitcher whose fast ball touches 95mph. The force of his fastest pitch was calculated and clips of people being smashed in the face by pitches (or even worse, pitchers hit by return hits) were shown. Ouch.

Then cricket was introduced as a quirky outta-left-field contender. A brief comment along the lines of 'you may think that cricket is about quaint sandwiches and cups of tea... but you'd be dead wrong' accompanied clips almost exclusively from New Zealand vs West Indies series over the years. So who would represent cricket? Shoaib? Brett? None other than... Franklyn Rose. To be fair, there can't have been many fast bowlers knocking about the US and Franklyn was quite good for the Windies, taking 53 wickets at 31. Despite playing his last test in 2000, he looked in good shape and was soon whanging the ball down at seemingly good pace, with one delivery smashing the leg stump - this program's equivalent of a money shot. When Frankyn starting talking about how he could break arms and legs legitimately in cricket because he is allowed to aim at the body, I thought 'well, that maybe true but it doesn't happen that often...'. Broken legs sound a lot more interesting than broken fingers and when Franklyn pointed out that a hit to the head could kill, the moody, dramatic background music reached its crescendo. Here comes the science.

My disbelief in the program, which up til now had willingly weathered the dodgy scientific methods, over-eager host (and creator), and 'person wearing lab coat + safety goggles = scientist' sophistry came back from suspension with a bang when Mr Voiceover said 'Franklyn bowls at 95 mph.' Shoaib, maybe. Brett on a good day, maybe. But not Franklyn, and especially not 37-year-old-hasn't-played-first-class-cricket-in-ages Franklyn. Oh well. It turns out that because a cricket ball weighs a little more than a baseball that a hit in the face from a rapid bouncer will cause a bit more damage than a beanball from a pitcher. And because bowlers are allowed to hit batsmen (to an extent) and pitchers are not, cricket is far more dangerous. Q.E.D.

You can find several clips of the show on youtube and it's quite entertaining, especially if you like watching glass being smashed by a golf ball in super-slo-mo or someone smacking a crash test dummy in the face with a hockey stick. Just don't believe the numbers...