Sydney 31 October -5 November 1999 |
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Injuries in Australian professional cricketers T. James*, J. Orchard, S. Carter & E. Alcott Cricket is the most popular summer sport in every state of Australia and most Commonwealth countries. Almost all previous injury research in cricketers has been of the lumbar spine in fast bowlers (Engstrom et al., 1997; Foster et al., 1989). As ongoing injury surveillance has not been performed, the quantitative benefits of preventive interventions, such as eliminating a ‘mixed’ bowling action, have not been established. The participating teams were the Australian Test and One-Day International teams and the Sheffield Shield and Domestic One-Day teams for the six Australian states during the 1998-99 season. Injuries were reported in players who were team or contracted squad members. An injury was defined as causing a player to miss selection for a match, requiring surgery or limiting performance during a match (being unable to bat, bowl or field when required). Injury prevalence was calculated as the percentage of team members unavailable through injury at any given time. There were 95 injuries causing 213 player games to be missed. The overall injury incidence was 20 injuries per 10000 player hours. The injury prevalence during summer for the Australian One-Day team (14%) was higher than the Australian Test team (7%). The state teams (One-Day and Sheffield Shield) had average injury prevalences of 3-9%. Injury prevalence was higher in bowlers (10%) than batsmen (4%). Bowling injuries usually had a non-contact mechanism. The body areas where injuries were most prevalent were shoulder, trunk and thigh. Injuries in cricket occur to all regions of the body, with a mixed pattern of contact injuries and non-contact injuries. The highest injury prevalence was in the Australian One-Day team. Lumbar spine stress fractures were not a major cause of missed playing time in the 1998-9 season, perhaps due in part to preventive measures currently in place. Trunk injuries (including ‘side strains’) are very common in fast bowlers and require further research. References
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