County Championship: Umpires Ask Steve Smith To Change 'Illegal' Helmet, Play Halted For 10 Minutes

Umpires Chris Watts and Peter Hartley came in between and told Smith about his helmet not meeting the standards by the ECC for the County Championship.

Steve Smith in action.

Source : Getty

Australia’s star batter Steve Smith made his county debut for Sussex against Worcestershire at New Road on Friday. Sussex were reeling on Day 2 at 67/3 when Smith walked into bat and joined skipper Cheteshwar Pujara in the middle. But then just after eight balls, Umpires Chris Watts and Peter Hartley came in between and told Smith about his helmet not meeting the standards by the ECC for the County Championship.

According to the Appendix A2.3 of the County Championship rule, “A protective helmet is headwear made of hard material and designed to protect the head, neck and/or the face. For the purposes of interpreting these Laws of Cricket, such a description will include faceguards, grilles, and neck guards.”

Steve’s helmet did not have a neck protector and as a result. The game was put on hold for 10 minutes until one was fitted into his helmet, as reported by Wisden. The 33-year-old then again started batting and added vital 61 runs for the fourth wicket with Pujara and put his team out of trouble after three early blows.

The Australia-based batter scored 30 off 57 balls with the help of five boundaries before going to the pavilion by Josh Tongue. After Smith’s wicket, Pujara stayed there and scored a half-century and made another fifty-plus stand with Oli Carter, taking his team’s total to 200 with five wickets down. On Saturday, Pujara went on to make his third century during the Sussex Vs Worcestershire match at the New Road.

India’s Test specialist played a knock of 136 runs and joined  Indian batting legends in an elite list. He became only the sixth batter to score 19,000 or more runs in first-class cricket in the history of Indian cricket. Cricketer turned commentator  Sunil Gavaskar sits at the top of the list with 25,834 runs from 348 matches followed by Sachin Tendulkar (25,396 runs from 310 games).