First, Kevin Sinclair fell to the ground. Then, he had to walk off the pitch, suffering the twin ignominy of physical pain and being dismissed. Just before 5:30pm on Sunday afternoon, , accelerated into the crease and unfurled a bouncer.
Sinclair, West Indies’ number seven, shaped to evade the ball as it speared into his ribs. Instead, a sharp blow to the wrist knocked Sinclair to his feet. As he fell, the Nottingham crowd could immediately detect that here was Test cricket at its most primal – batsmen battling not merely the threat to their wickets but palpable physical danger too.
Facing speeds at 90mph, a batsman has 0.45 seconds between the ball leaving the hand and playing their shot – and even less time when it is quicker. There are 22 yards between a bowler releasing the ball and the stumps; the batsman, standing in front of his wickets, is about 18 yards away.
Following the ball’s release, batsmen have to make a myriad of decisions: where the ball will pitch; how it will bounce; whether it will swing in the air before pitching; whether it will seam off the pitch after it lands. Then, they either play their shot, leave the ball or – if the delivery is speared towards their body – sway away from the ball. To make effective contact with the ball, the margin of error is infinitesimal: batsmen must judge the ball’s position to within three centimetres and the time it reaches them to within three milliseconds.
Good luck. Batsmen do not even get the luxury of 0.