Innovative captaincy in cricket at its best

This excerpt from the latest Ask Stevens column on Cricinfo just caught my eye.

I heard that Mike Brearley, frustrated by Middlesex's inability to break a stubborn partnership, put the spare fielding helmet in front of the wicket to try to tempt the batsmen to hit it and score five easy runs. Is this true or is it an urban myth? asked Mike Shearing from China

No, it's not an urban myth, it did happen, and I was there! (I was working at Lord's at the time.) Mike Brearley mentions it in his excellent book The Art of Captaincy, saying it was in a match against Yorkshire, "who were batting without much sense of adventure". I remember him calling to the bowler, Phil Edmonds, "Let's try The Ploy": they placed a spare fielding helmet on the ground at short midwicket, to try to tempt the batsmen to play across the line to Edmonds's left-arm spin in order to collect the five penalty runs they would have received if the ball hit the helmet. Brearley doesn't mention the year, but I think it must have been this match in 1980. If that is the one, the ploy doesn't seem to have worked, although Edmonds did take three wickets, and shortly afterwards the regulations were amended so you could only park the spare helmet behind the wicketkeeper.

The legend of Mike Brearley's cricketing acumen continues to grow ...