I hope you have all been watching England thrashing South Africa over the last few weeks in the cricket (breaks my poor little South African heart!!). I was lucky enough to work full time in cricket for seven years (as Derbyshire County Cricket Club’s men’s physio and the BLACKCAPS (New Zealand’s International men’s team) physio, and since my time of being fully involved in one of my favourite sports, I am still fortunate enough to treat a lot of cricketers.
As someone who has loved cricket for a long time the old image of cricket sometimes still rears it’s head… one of a slightly chubby, quite lazy BLOKE who likes a pie and a pint. In this day and age it couldn’t be further from the truth (well at the professional level!); not only are cricketers extremely fit, strong and athletic, but they are often women too!
Cricket is a sport that is susceptible to overuse injuries:
partly because a lot of the movements that make up cricket are a a bit crazy! Think about the position a fast bowler’s body gets into while bowling or the extreme rotation a shoulder is required to get into for throwing.
partly because of the repetitive nature of cricket: for example bowling twenty overs in a day, throwing repeatedly a long way.
fast bowlers can run 28km/ day in the field, or 15km/day in a One Day International. Batsmen tend to run less obviously, but up to 15km when batting for a long time.
Prevention of injury in cricket is both mutli-faceted and a fine balance.
There is the obvious stuff:
wearing a proper helmet,
good boots that fit and are supportive
protective clothing that fits you eg pads etc. Although its good costcutting to share pads amongst teammates, it’s doubtful everyone is the same exact same size.
limiting bowling on hard surfaces indoors. Use the winter to get strong instead of getting the overs in.
check your throwing and bowling technique with a qualified coach who can make sure that you are not putting yourself at risk with something odd in your technique.
You need to do enough bowling/ batting/ throwing to maintain your muscle, bones, tendons, ligaments… do too much however and you risk getting injured. Do too little and you risk getting injured due to lack of strength/ stamina in the tissues.
So how much should you bowl?
The ECB (England & Wales Cricket Board) have put together some really useful directives for young players on bowling workload which can be found here. For adults, this balance is trickier, and partly comes down to how much you have bowled in the past (which gives you some resiliency), but also how you build up to a high workload. It’s by no means foolproof but the 7-4-2 rule is an easy way to try and manage workload. Have a read of our previous blog on optimal loading for more information. Be careful on getting carried away with bowling indoors in the winter, the surface is harder, your run up is less (and therefore more effort has to come from your shoulder and back) and you tend not to bowl in overs, you tend to bowl ball after ball with no natural break like you would in a game. The last statement rings true for all net bowling so try bowling in pairs, and bowling overs instead so that it’s easier to keep track of how many balls you have bowled.
How much throwing is enough?
So again, you have to throw enough to build up your muscles (and if you’re a kid to also make the bony adaptations that occur when you throw a lot), but not too much. It’s also important to increase your distances and intensity of throws as time goes on. A flat out 60m throw shouldn’t be your first throw after the winter break! As an adult I recommend starting at about 50 throws a day (with a rest every third day if you can), increasing the distance as you warm up. Kirk Russell ex-England physio has a great article on throwing if you are interested: Throwing
Batting
Batting injuries tend to occur if you’re not quite strong enough, or not quite flexible enough, or if you’re unlucky enough to get hit. I recommend yoga or pilates for core and flexibility.
Fielding
Fielding injuries tend to happen if you’re diving around, and also tend to be worse if you are not flexible enough, or not conditioned enough to diving around. Agility in fielding is something that needs to be trained as much as batting and bowling, and keeping your hips and shoulders mobile can go a long way to helping make you less susceptible to injuries. The more strength work you can do on your trunk muscles the more resistant you are to forces as you hit the ground when diving.
There is much to say about cricket injuries but hopefully this has given you something to think about! Happy to answer any questions that have come up when reading this article.
Kate x