Age-related changes in the performance of bowlers in Test match cricket

Jack Thorley

doi:10.1177/17479541211001726

Abstract

Data from elite professional sports players provide a valuable source of information on human performance and ageing. Functional declines in performance have been investigated across a wide range of sporting disciplines that vary in their need for physical strength, endurance, cognitive ability and motor skills, but researchers do not always consider other sources of heterogeneity that can exist between individuals. Using information on all male bowlers to have played Test match cricket since the early 1970s, this study separated age-dependent variation in bowling performance at the population-level into within-individual and between-individual (age-class) changes. There was little evidence for senescence in bowling performance as measured via economy rate or wicket-taking ability, irrespective of the style of the bowler (fast or slow). Instead, analyses detected strong between-individual contributions to bowling performance as higher quality bowlers were able to compete at the elite level for longer, and were therefore over-represented in older age classes: how they accomplish this alongside the physical demands of Test cricket remains unresolved. Bowlers also experienced a deterioration in the last year of their Test careers. Lastly, multivariate models identified a negative correlation between slow bowlers in their economy rate and their wicket-taking ability, suggesting that in general, the most economical slow bowlers in the modern era of Test match cricket have also taken wickets at the fastest rate. The same is not true for fast bowlers, which is perhaps partly because bowling at high speed compromises accuracy and thus increases scoring opportunities for batters.

Highlights

The vast majority of species experience declines in functional capacity in the later stages of their lifespan.[1,2,3,4] Contemporary human populations are no exception,[5] and the physiological deterioration that comes with old age is perhaps better understood in humans than in any other species
Fast bowlers and slow bowlers were modelled separately, and in each case three performance attributes in each innings bowled were assessed, (i) economy rate: the number of runs a bowler concedes per over, (ii) wicket taking ability: the number of wickets taken by a bowler in an innings, and (iii) proportion of the total overs of an team’s innings bowled by an individual
Separate models were fitted to fast bowlers and slow bowlers, for three performance metrics, economy rate, wicket-taking ability, and the proportion of the overs in the innings bowled

Summary

Introduction

The vast majority of species experience declines in functional capacity in the later stages of their lifespan.[1,2,3,4] Contemporary human populations are no exception,[5] and the physiological deterioration that comes with old age (senescence or ageing) is perhaps better understood in humans than in any other species. In the current study, mixed effects models were employed so as to separate age-related changes that take place within individuals (due to improvement or senescence) from changes that take place between individuals (at the population-level), as arise when individuals of differing quality appear or disappear from the population sample more or less often at different ages.[48] Fast bowlers and slow bowlers were modelled separately, and in each case three performance attributes in each innings bowled were assessed, (i) economy rate: the number of runs a bowler concedes per over, (ii) wicket taking ability: the number of wickets taken by a bowler in an innings, and (iii) proportion of the total overs of an team’s innings bowled by an individual.

Results

Conclusion