Injury patterns of South African provincial cricket players over a two season period

Abstract

Introduction: To determine the incidence and nature of injury patterns for elite cricketers over two seasons. Methods: The physiotherapists and/or doctors working with four provincial teams completed a questionnaire for each cricketer that presented with an injury during the 2004-2005 (S1) and 2005-2006 (S2) cricket seasons. This was in order to determine (i) the anatomical site of injury, (ii) the month of injury during the season, (iii) the diagnosis using the OSCIS injury classification system,6 (iv) the mechanism of injury, (v) whether it was a recurrence of a previous injury, (vi) whether the injury had recurred again during the season, and (vii) biographical data. Results: The results showed that 180 injuries (S1 - 84; S2 – 96) were sustained. The teams spent, on average, 2 472 hours on matches, 4 148 on practices and 1 612 hours on fitness during the two season period. The injury prevalence was 7.5% per match, while the incidence of injury was 29.6 injuries per 10 000 hours of match, practice and training time, with the match incidence being 73.5 injuries per 10 000 hours and the training incidence being 15.4 injuries per 10 000 hours. Bowling (29.4%), fielding and wicket-keeping (26.7%) and batting (18.9%) accounted for the majority of the injuries. The occurrence of injuries were predominately to the lower limbs (S1 45.3%; S2 – 41.7%), back and trunk (S1 – 19.0%; S2 – 18.9%), upper limbs (S1 – 19.0%; S2 – 22.2%), head and neck (S1 - 6.0%; S2 – 2.8%) and illnesses (S1 – 10.7%; S2 – 14.4%). The injuries occurred primarily during first-class matches (38.9%), limited-overs matches (21.6%), practices (16.7%) and as a result of gradual onset (19.5%). Acute injuries made up 77.8% of the injuries. The majority of the injuries were first-time injuries (75.6%), with 10.5% and 13.9% recurrent injuries from the previous and the present season, respectively. The major injuries during S1 were haematomas (19.0%), muscle strains (16.7%) and other trauma (14.3%), while during S2 the injuries were primarily muscle strains (15.6%), other trauma (19.8%), tendinopathy (15.6%) and acute sprains (14.6%). The primary mechanisms of injury occurred in the delivery stride when bowling (18.9 %) and over-bowling (7.2 %), impact by the ball when batting (11.1 %) and sliding to field the ball (6.1 %). Conclusion: The results indicate a pattern of cause of injury, with the fast bowler most likely to sustain an acute injury to the soft tissues of the lower limb while participating in matches and practices during the early part of the season.