Agencies/Melbourne
Ireland fast bowler John Mooney has delved into medieval history to improve his own batting helmet at the World Cup in the aftermath of the Phillip Hughes tragedy, Irish media reported yesterday.
The 33-year-old Dubliner designed an attachment, which he calls a “gorget”, to protect the neck at the back and side of the head. A “gorget”, from the French word for throat, was a crucial part of suits of armour worn in the Middle Ages that protected the neck and throat.
“It’s a very simple idea and it’s designed to attach to existing helmets,” Mooney told the Irish Independent.
Mooney said he started work on the attachment after a cousin was hit on the neck in a club game last year, and his work intensified when Australian batsman Hughes suffered his fatal blow in November.
“It’s something myself and my father-in-law were working on. He’s an architect and pretty useful with his hands too and we set about designing an extra grille to fix at the back of the helmet. Safety is something I was very aware of before what happened to Phil.”
Mooney, who sported the new design in the World Cup win over the United Arab Emirates in Brisbane last week, hopes to have the gorget approved and in production within a few months.
Afghanistan no surprise for New Zealand coach
New Zealand coach Mike Hesson insisted that the high-flying Black Caps will pay Afghanistan the utmost respect having tracked the Asian minnows’ astonishing progress at close range.
Hesson briefly coached Kenya in 2011 and 2012 with the African side coming up against the Afghans in second-tier events. The 40-year-old will renew his rivalry with them in the World Cup in Napier on Sunday.
“They have three guys who bowl over 140km/h and they can swing it,” he said of quicks Shapoor Zadran, Dawlat Zadran and Hamid Hassan.
“Generally, their batsmen don’t die wondering. It should be a good contest. We have to show them due respect and make sure we put in a good performance.”
New Zealand have won all four games in Pool A and have already secured their spot in the quarter-finals while Afghanistan can still gate-crash the last-eight, standing just a point behind Australia after losing to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka before edging Scotland by one wicket.
Their next challenge is taking on four-time champions Australia in Perth tomorrow. “We’ll do our scouting on Afghanistan and we’ll prepare the best we can. We’ve still got a lot to achieve in the next few weeks,” said Hesson, whose team secured their quarter-final spot on Saturday with a nail-biting one-wicket win over Australia in Auckland.
