Can you play Cricket with one eye?

[oitoitoi]

CLive Lloyd was meant to be almost blind without his glasses (was injured as a schoolboy trying to break up a fight), anyone know if he ever gave it a go without them? Even at club or charity match level?

 

[SJS]

The technical explanation :-

Acquired monocular vision (loss of one eye) will affect vision and the individual in several ways. The two primary deficits are

• loss of stereoscopic binocular vision and
• reduction of peripheral field of vision

Monocular people will have an impairment in their orientation (to space) which results from a lack of kinesthetic cues arising from convergence (binocular "eye aiming") and accommodation (focusing).

the advantages of binocular vision (and conversely the disadvantage to monocular vision) are in visual motor skills, better exteroception of form and color, and better appreciation of the dynamic relationship of the body to the environment, thereby facilitating control of manipulation, reaching and balance.

these problems will manifest as difficulties in eye hand coordination, clumsiness, bumping into objects and/or people, ascending or descending stairs or curbs, crossing the street, driving, various sports and miscellaneous activities of daily living

"Individuals limited by loss of vision in one eye have difficulties in depth perception." "Determining the distance within three feet from the eye is extremely difficult and highly unreliable." "Beyond three feet, other distance cues can substitute for loss of binocular disparity, provided monocularly impaired individuals are free to move their heads, which allows them to obtain information about relative distances by taking more time than they would when visual images from both eyes can be superimposed, as they are with binocular vision."​

 

[NUFAN]

I have a really poor left eye. I'm not blind in it but for instance if I sit here right now and type this i can't read a single word that I'm writing..

To be honest after I got hit by a rope and my eye sight start failing on me I had a form slump, my worst ever, it took me half a season [around 7 or 8 games] to get over it. I was definitely struggling to pick up the length of the ball but after that and especially the next season it was fine and I actually was forced to concentrate more and that certainly isn't a bad thing when you're batting and I did well again.

The problem is with the fielding. It would be very hard to be a good fielder with one eye. Again I have better than 1 eye, but I really struggled to pick up the ball for shots that went in the air in the outfield.

So I'm going to say that yes you can play cricket with just one eye, but not as well. Hardly earth shattering prediction hey.

 

[Michaelf7777777]

I can't remember the name but wasn't their a one eyed Norweigan bowler ho played for South Africa in their early days as a test side

 

[PhoenixFire]

Ian Healy managed it.

 

[stumpski]

I can't remember the name but wasn't their a one eyed Norweigan bowler ho played for South Africa in their early days as a test side

Well remembered there - Eiulf 'Buster' Nupen.

 

[Richard]

WoW, I never knew old Buster master-of-matting-but-useless-on-grass Nupen was a one-eyed man.

 

[Magrat Garlick]

Well remembered there - Eiulf 'Buster' Nupen.

Wish I could say it was Norwegian for eye-wolf.

Like all names, it's watered down, but probably meant "lucky wolf" once upon a time.

 

[zaremba]

Ian Healy managed it.

It took me a while but

 

[Burgey]

CLive Lloyd was meant to be almost blind without his glasses (was injured as a schoolboy trying to break up a fight), anyone know if he ever gave it a go without them? Even at club or charity match level?

Not sure whether he ever did.

Neil Harvey wnet to an opthamologist when he was in SA one time as he had somehting in his eye or sommuy.

While he was there the doc tested his sight, presumably thinking as Harvey was such a great player he'd have amazing eyesight.

When the results came back, the doctor apparently said to Harvey "Who leads you out to bat?", as the results were so poor!!

 

[Richard]

You know, it's funny how often I've heard that story attached to Bradman. Bit like the story of Jupp refusing to leave the crease after being bowled is attached to WG Grace so often.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

I play firsts around here with a guy who's blind in his right eye and bats left handed (ie. his front eye). He's not as good as he used to be but he's still a very good bat, could've played higher levels if he didn't cop a chunk of metal in it. Bats very front on now and struggles to completely pick up a darker ball, which makes it hard for him to bat in murky light. Doesn't play horizontal bat anymore.

 

[PhoenixFire]

Sort of OT, but there is a bloke at my club who was an amazing batsman when he was younger, used to smash around Matthew Hoggard in the Bradford League and was a certainty to play for Yorkshire when he was a bit older. When he was 19 or something, he had a nervous breakdown and now gets the odd game for our 3rd XI. Crazy.

 

[Matt79]

You know, it's funny how often I've heard that story attached to Bradman. Bit like the story of Jupp refusing to leave the crease after being bowled is attached to WG Grace so often.

Sounds like a bastardisation of what happened to Ponsford. At the start of WW2, he had a physical as part of joining the air force. Doc was surprised to discover Pon was red/green colour blind. He asked him "how did you bat not being able to pick red out from green?". Ponsford replied "I just saw how big the ball looked, not what colour it was"