Cricket In South Africa Research Articles

Injury profiles in sub-elite Women's Cricket: Exploring incidence, prevalence, nature, onset and body region

IntroductionThe rise in participation in sports, like women's cricket, is linked with increased injury risk. Providing high-level longitudinal data is the first step in implementing evidence-based injury prevention strategies. DesignProspective cohort study. ObjectiveThis cohort study aims to describe the injury profiles in sub-elite women's cricket in South Africa during the 2022/23 season. MethodsInjuries were prospectively recorded using injury surveillance questionnaires, injury surveillance database, and logbooks completed by each team's medical staff. Injury rates were investigated for match and training days, body region, player role, nature, and activity at the time of injury. ResultsThree teams with a total of 44 players (20.86 ± 1.6 years) were included in the study. Injury incidence was 85.23 per 1000 player match days, 15.91 for match time-loss and 69.32 for non-time-loss, with 2.95% of players unavailable for match selection on any day. Fast bowlers had the highest injury incidence. Fielding caused 46.67% of all injuries. Injury incidence was higher in training than in matches. The wrist/hand had the highest injury incidence and caused the most match time-loss. ConclusionThis study provides valuable insights regarding the current injury rates in sub-elite female cricket players.

‘Tours of Imperialism’: Cricket and Cultural Transfer in South Africa, 1880–1910

Few can deny the significance of sport in today’s South Africa. The sporting structures upon which this is based were first introduced to the country by the British in the late nineteenth century. In line with policies of cultural imperialism, sports such as cricket were promoted at this time as part of a wider political agenda that encouraged the adoption of an ‘English’ way of life in the region. Sports tours, most notably cricket, were a fundamental part of this cultural transfer between the ‘Mother Country’ and her colonies in Southern Africa. To underpin the study of transnational linkages and transfer in African sports, this paper will offer an historical overview of how ‘British-styled’ sport arrived in South Africa and how the early cricket tours between England and South Africa were constructed to promote distinct political and cultural connections. This paper will explore the early development of cricket in South Africa and investigate its symbiotic link to British imperialism and colonialism via the first tours and sporting exchanges that took place. The origins of the game in South Africa will be examined as well as its development up to 1910 (the date of Union in South Africa) as the site of a constructed transnational 'brotherhood' between Britain and its most coveted African colonies.

Supporting the reform process: the role of politics in South Africa's participation at the 1992 World Cup

There is an extensive literature analysing the relationship between sport and the social world. This article adds to this by making a study of the association between politics and cricket in South Africa. It takes as a case study the role of South Africa's participation in the 1992 World Cup and the political processes that first allowed it and then sought to exploit the event to further strengthen deeply-held positions. A whites-only referendum on continuing the reform process was held during the World Cup and this article contemplates the impact that readmission to international cricket had on voting intentions.

‘Neither cricketers nor ladies’: Towards a history of women and cricket in South Africa, 1860s–2000s

There is a dearth of research and writing on women's cricket in South Africa. In an attempt to enhance understanding of the nature and effects of women's involvement in the game of cricket over the past 200 years, this essay offers a chronological account of the sport and the role women played in it. It draws on readings from the international scholarship on women's early involvement in sport, the fragments that have existed to date about women's cricket in South Africa and some newly discovered primary material from the 1950s onwards. The essay aims to provide a historical context and open a window for historians and social analysts into an area few knew existed before. There is now a distinctive history and subculture of cricket with multiple social dimensions for scholars to explore; here I offer some preliminary insights.

South African cricket and British imperialism, 1870–1910

During the later years of Queen Victoria's reign, cricket was as popular as ever in the home country while overseas the game's influence had spread to all boundaries of Britain's Empire. It was during this period too that South Africa, one of England's most recent ‘cricketing colonies’, was experiencing major transition in both society and structure. This essay will explore the early development of cricket in South Africa and investigate its link to British imperialism and colonialism. It will highlight how key agencies and individuals were pivotal in the process of securing the early cricketing ties between England and South Africa. The essay will also investigate the growth of cricket's political significance during the latter part of the nineteenth century – a time when within Britain and her colonies, the game came to symbolize the very essence of an exclusive white, Victorian society.

Cultural Confrontation: Race, Politics and Cricket in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s

(2002). Cultural Confrontation: Race, Politics and Cricket in South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s. Culture, Sport, Society: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 79-108.

Transformational leadership and organisational effectiveness in the administration of cricket in South Africa

After years of isolation from the international sporting arena, South African sports teams have recently achieved much success. This article is concerned specifically with managing for organisational effectiveness in South African cricket. According to the theory of transformational leadership, there should be a positive relationship between this style of leadership and organisational effectiveness. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used to collect information about leadership while data for organisational effectiveness, the dependent variable, was collected using the Effectiveness Survey for Cricket Administration. Most of the results regarding the relationship of the transformational leadership factors and organisational effectiveness were significant. On the other hand, most of the results regarding the relationship of the transactional leadership factors and organisational effectiveness were not significant. The overall results provide general support of Bass' (1990) argument of the universal application of the transformational leadership theory.