How safe is your helmet?

We hear a lot about progress in modern cricket. Players are fitter, their skills are better, the bats are thicker and the hits longer. But what about safety? How much has the humble helmet changed since its tentative introduction back in the '70s?

Despite significant improvements through the years, the answer might still be "not enough".

That's why in the last few years the game's governing bodies have instigated scientific reviews into helmet safety standards. And the results have been revealing, particularly as they've come during a period in which the incidence of high-profile head or facial injuries has sharply increased. There was New Zealand's Daniel Flynn back in 2008, as well as Gloucestershire's Craig Spearman - who fractured his eye socket and required extensive reparative surgery - right up to Marlon Samuels in the Big Bash League a couple of winters ago, Stuart Broad's broken nose last summer, and Craig Kieswetter's brutal eye injury, which has left his career hanging in the balance. There are dozens of head injuries every year. In these days of aggressive, front-dog batsmanship and high-stakes, high-octane cricket, there's rarely a week around the world where someone's lid doesn't get rattled.

The tragedy of Phillip Hughes' death has thrown the world's attention on to the issue of helmet safety, as the mortal threat posed by a fast-moving cricket ball has become chillingly clear and jolted us out of the complacent assumption that we'll "probably be alright". It showed that even choosing to wear a helmet is no guarantee of safety.

Specifically, Hughes' awful case highlighted one key area, at the back of the neck, in which protection is not provided even by a helmet - at least in older models of lid. But in fact concussion injuries, affected by the shape and protectiveness of the shell, have not been the focus of recent reviews. The majority of high-profile injuries in recent years have been to the eyes and face after the ball has penetrated the gap between peak and grill, or the grill itself has been deformed - and pushed into the face - by the ball.

The key realisation in recent years has been that while some of these injuries occur when the gap between peak and grill has been set wider than the diameter of the ball - in a high proportion of cases balls have penetrated the gap even when that gap was smaller than the diameter of the ball. Bottom line: even when set to their "safest" setting, helmets weren't able to stop a fast-moving ball forcing its way through. Development was required.

Until recently, the only industry standard (a safety test that any helmet should aim to pass before entering the market) was one written in 1998. But after years of research, an updated set of standards were agreed upon last year, by a panel led by Dr Craig Ranson - the ICC medical team's leading helmet-safety specialist - and including representatives from several major manufacturers, the ECB, a standards testing house (Andrew Diamond of INSPEC), Loughborough University Sports Technology (Dr Andrew Harland), and the Federation of International Cricketers' Associations (represented by Dr Angus Porter, chief executive of England's Professional Cricketers' Association, who also happens to have a PhD in Material Sciences).

These standards have been approved and published by the British Standards Institute (most major brands of helmet are based in the UK), and while at the time of writing there is only one company who has one of their models certified to BS7928:2013 (the standard's catchy name), the major manufacturers have all begun to test newly developed models against the most recent requirements. As a result, as Dr Ranson tells All Out Cricket, "We are likely to see a wave of new-standard helmets on shelves and heads this pre-season."

So what are these new standards? The old test measured deceleration when the helmet shell was dropped onto a cricket ball-sized hemispherical anvil, but didn't include any "projectile testing", nor any provision for face protection as per the majority of injury cases in recent times. To pass the new test, it must be impossible to set the gap between peak and grill at a width greater than the size of the ball, and a helmet must also be able to withstand a ball fired - at realistic speeds - directly at the gap between peak and grill. A special air cannon is placed a metre away from the helmet, which fires the ball at 28 metres-per-second. This roughly equates to 65mph, which is the speed thought to replicate a delivery bowled between 75 and 85mph once it's hit the pitch. Testing also includes thorough examination of the shell through a succession of high-speed impacts in specific areas.

For all that improvement, technology is only part of the story here. A big part of improving safety levels will involve education. Even after the Hughes incident, with the issue of head injuries as high up cricket's agenda as it has ever been, in the delayed first Test between Australia and India just days after the funeral, Virat Kohli was hit on the helmet by Mitchell Johnson. There was a gasp. A moment was taken. But Kohli took off his lid, gave it a quick once-over, and then popped it back on his head before facing up again. Cue consternation from protection specialists. A hit like that from a bowler of Johnson's pace can damage the shell - the spot hit can only promise to protect the skull once. In the eyes of the experts, at the highest level, a strike on the helmet should trigger an instant change of lid; something for which players and backroom staff need to take responsibility - however irksome it might seem. As Dr Ranson says, "Players need to be educated to make the right choices, to adjust helmets correctly and pick ones that do the job, not just feel comfortable or look good. They have responsibility for their own safety."

So what does it all mean for us, recreational cricketers? You don't face that pace of bowling, and whatever new lid you buy, you have to pay for it. How much protection do you really need? Well, helmets that pass the old standard but not the new one have not become illegal. You'll still be able to buy them, and they'll likely become cheaper, too. And of course, if you're over 18, it's not mandatory to wear a helmet at all. If you've never worn one, and feel like the standard you play at doesn't merit it, you can happily carry on in a nice, sun-beaten club cap. The safety-conscious will argue that a top-edge here, an unexpected beamer there or the outside chance of a) your mate cranking up the bowling machine or b) the oppo having a ringer fast bowler, mean that, whatever the standard, you're at risk of getting hit at dangerous speeds. But there is no compulsion on you as an individual to wear a lid, and in fact those who have never protected their heads are often better at making sure they get out of the way.

But since 2000 the ECB has made it compulsory for junior cricketers to wear helmets when batting or standing up as a wicketkeeper. We now have a generation of adult club cricketers who grew up under these rules, and wear helmets as standard, expecting that they are protected. Their techniques have developed accordingly; they try scoop shots against the bowling machine and attempt to hook off the front foot. One thing's for sure: the most dangerous situation of all is if a player feels invincible while wearing an under-par lid.

And if the purpose of the ECB's initial 2000 ruling was to insist on safety, it might not be long before the rules are changed to make compulsory not just helmets but ones that pass the most exacting safety standards. Issues such as a club or school's duty of care to its pupils or members - and even insurance - at junior or senior level - might come to include specific requirements for the highest level of protection available.

Clearly one important factor here is expense - higher tech means higher price - and this has been considered throughout the review process, which has been careful not to demand helmets too heavy-duty to actually bat in. PCA chief executive Angus Porter tells All Out Cricket: "We need to be very clear though that this is not a standard whereby if a player is wearing a helmet that meets the new standard and then gets one flush in the face from Mitchell Johnson they are guaranteed to be safe from injury. We set the bar at a lower speed to represent a reasonable entry-level benchmark that all manufacturers ought to be able to achieve. Certainly one of the ECB concerns was that we didn't get to a situation where we over-engineered the standard to the point that helmets became unaffordably expensive."

One idea might be for those running school or club sides to start investing in a "pool" of new helmets - say three or four - to cover the whole team, to help improve safety without asking individuals to part with huge amounts of cash. It's certainly worth considering, at least at junior level, where the potential for damage to the head is perhaps at its greatest.

The first set of newly qualified helmets will be hitting the market this year. But Porter - whose organisation looks after professional cricketers around the country - is keen to stress that the development of helmet technologies should remain an ongoing process.

"I don't think any manufacturer should regard meeting the standard as the end of the story. I've encouraged manufacturers to take the view that one of the ways in which they can get a competitive advantage is not only to meet the standard but to beat it; to wind up the speed on the testing a bit further and say, 'The standard requires an impact at 65mph - which is the ball leaving the hand at 75-80mph - but our helmet passes at 75, 80, 85, 100 or whatever. I think it's important that we continue to strive to get better."

Cricket - believe it or not - does have its macho element, but as time goes on and the injury tally ticks up and up, it's important that anyone using a helmet - believing themself to be safe from harm - has a lid that's actually up to the job.