The game of Cricket, which is also referred to as the Gentleman's Game, is widely followed across the world and in some countries like India, it is akin to a religion and its followers are as passionate as religious zealots. Though the game might not seem to be very deadly, in its long and chequered history, there have been incidents of players losing their lives on the field of play! Currently, all the eyes of Cricket fans are on the Indian Premier League T20 tournament, which is moving into the exciting Playoffs stage. There have been many remarkable events in this year's IPL that shall stay in our memories for long. However, on the flip side, there have been certain instances where our hearts were in our mouths, for a few seconds!

In one of the recent league stage matches between Sunrisers Hyderabad and the Kings XI Punjab, a throw from the deep, hit one of the batsman on their face, causing them to go down. SRH allrounder Vijay Shankar was running towards the danger end when KXIP's Nicholas Pooran aimed to take down the stumps with a fast and accurate throw. However, Shankar had almost made it and in a last ditch effort, tried to put in a dive to save himself but came directly inbetween the ball and the stumps. Shankar was hit on the side of his head by the powerful throw from Pooran and he was knocked down, immediately. One of the biggest highlights here was that, Shankar was wearing a helmet and the grille deflected the ball. The helmet definitely lessened the impact of the blow and protected Shankar from being hit by the ball directly!

Now, the Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar has written to the International Cricket Council, asking them to immediately make wearing helmets in professional cricket, mandatory! He put out a tweet which read, "The game has become faster but is it getting safer? Recently we witnessed an incident which could have been nasty. Be it a spinner or a pacer, wearing a HELMET should be MANDATORY for batsmen at professional levels. Request @icc to take this up on priority. (sic)" It would indeed bode well for the safety of all the players, if the ICC considers Sachin Tendulkar's request and makes helmets mandatory for all players. The ICC has also been taking a number of precautions and has introduced a rule that a mandatory concussion test be carried out on any batsmen who have been hit on their head by the ball. Only if the player clears the concussion test will he be allowed to continue playing. 

Check out Sachin's tweet here: