Abstract
The aim of this study was to describe the epidemiology of injuries; time-loss and non-time loss, in elite male academy cricket.
Design
Prospective cohort analysis.
Methods
Annual injury incidence and prevalence from all cricket related injuries were calculated for 348 male academy players (under-13 to under-18) from the 18 First-Class County Cricket clubs in England and Wales across four years (2017/18, 2018/19, 2020/21 and 2021/22), in accordance with the updated consensus statement for injury surveillance methods in cricket.
Results
The average annual injury incidence was 115.0 injuries/100 players/year, with similar rates between time-loss (59.7 injuries/100 players/year) and non-time loss injury incidence (55.3 injuries/100 players/year). On average, 8.5 % of players were unavailable on any given day of the year due to injury. Match injury incidence (48.8 injuries/100 players/year) was higher than cricket-based training (25.2 injuries/100 players/year), gym-based training, illness, and ‘other’ injury incidences. Match bowling was the activity associated with the highest total (17.7 injuries/100 players/year), time-loss (10.3 injuries/100 players/year) and non-time loss (7.4 injuries/100 players/year) injury incidence. The lumbar spine was the body location most frequently injured (15.3 injuries/100 players/year) and was the most prevalent body location injured (2.9 % of players).
Conclusions
The findings from this study provide, robust evidence of the extent of the injury problem in elite male academy cricketers. Bowling poses the greatest risk to players and the lumbar spine is the most common and prevalent injury location.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 100050 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport Plus |
| Volume | 3 |
| Early online date | 26 Dec 2023 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jun 2024 |
Funding
Ethical approval for this work was granted by the University of Bath Research Ethics Approval Committee for Health (REACH reference number: EP 20/21 065) and was carried out in accordance with The Code for Ethics of the Word Medical Association (Declaration of Helsinki) for experiments involving humans.The research did not receive any specific grant form funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. This study was undertaken as part of Amy Williams PhD Studentship joint funded by the University of Bath and ECB.The authors would like to thank the Science and Medicine staff at each FCCC club for their continuous data collection, ECB for supplying the injury surveillance data and the University of Bath for granting research approval. This study was undertaken as part of Amy Williams PhD Studentship joint funded by the University of Bath and ECB.
Keywords
- Adolescent
- Cricket sport
- Epidemiology
- Injury prevention
- Injury surveillance
- Sport medicine
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Orthopedics and Sports Medicine