Cricket Field Research Articles

Strength and Power Correlates of Throwing Velocity on Subelite Male Cricket Players.

Throwing velocity is an important aspect of fielding in cricket to affect run-outs and reduce the opponent's run-scoring opportunities. Although a relationship between strength and/or power and throwing velocity has been well established in baseball, water polo, and European handball, it has not been adequately explored in cricket. Consequently, this study aimed to determine the relationship between measures of strength and/or power and throwing velocity in cricket players. Seventeen male cricket players (mean ± SD; age, 21.1 ± 1.6 years; height, 1.79 ± 0.06 m; weight, 79.8 ± 6.4 kg) from an elite athlete program were tested for maximal throwing velocity from the stretch position and after a 3-meter shuffle. They were also assessed for strength and power using a range of different measures. Throwing velocity from the stretch position (30.5 ± 2.4 m·s) was significantly related to dominant leg lateral-to-medial jump (LMJ) distance (r = 0.71; p < 0.01), dominant shoulder internal rotation (IR) strength (r = 0.55; p ≤ 0.05), and dominant (r = 0.73; p < 0.01) and nondominant (r = 0.54; p ≤ 0.05) medicine ball rotation (MB Rot) throw velocity and medicine ball chest pass (MB CP) distance (r = 0.67; p < 0.01). A nonsignificant trend was observed for vertical jump (VJ) height (p = 0.06), whereas no significant relationships were observed for nondominant LMJ distance (p = 0.97), nondominant shoulder IR strength (p = 0.80), 1 repetition maximum (RM) squat strength (p = 0.57), 1RM bench press strength (p = 0.90), height (p = 0.33), or weight (p = 0.29). Multiple regression analysis revealed that dominant MB Rot and MB CP explained 66% of the variance. The results were similar for velocity after a shuffle step (31.8 ± 2.1 m·s); however, VJ height reached statistical significance (r = 0.51; p ≤ 0.05). The multiple regression was also similar with MB Rot and MB CP explaining 70% of the variance. The cricketers in this study threw with greater velocity than elite junior and subelite senior cricketers but with lower velocities than elite senior cricketers and collegiate level and professional baseball players. This is the first study to demonstrate a link between strength and/or power and throwing velocity in cricket players and highlight the importance of power development as it relates to throwing velocity. Exercises that more closely simulated the speed (body weight jumps and medicine ball throws) or movement pattern (shoulder IR) of overhead throwing were greater predictors of throwing velocity. Strength and conditioning staff should assess and develop power to enhance throwing performance in cricket players. Exercises with greater movement and speed specificity to throwing should be used in preference over exercises that are slower and have less movement specificity to the throwing motion. Cricket players should engage in power training to bridge the gap in performance between them and baseball players.

Cricket Field of Dreams: Queer Racial Identifications in Joseph O'Neill's Netherland

Joseph O'Neill's Netherland is less a novel about a multicultural post-9/11 America than it is a wistful story of lost Orientalized interracial male love in which Hans van der Broek mourns for the dead Trinidadian immigrant Chuck Ramkissoon. Hans's memories of their shared passion for cricket casts the sport as a form of sexual pleasure (even as actual sexual pleasure threatens Hans's sense of self) and queers the narrative's heteronormative resolution.

Automated Classification of Cricket Pitch Frames in Cricket Video

Automated detection of the cricket pitch is a fundamental step in content-based indexing and summarization of cricketvideos. In this paper, we propose visual-content based algorithms to automate the extraction of video frames with thecricket pitch in focus from input cricket videos. As a preprocessing step, we first select a subset of frames with a viewof the cricket field. This reduces the search space by eliminating frames that contain a view of the audience, close-upshots of specific players, advertisements, etc. The subset of frames containing the cricket field is then processed using astatistical modeling of the grayscale (brightness) histogram (SMoG). Since, in the present day, most videos are shot incolor and SMoG does not utilize this information, we propose an alternative: color quantization based region of interestextraction (CQRE). Experimental results demonstrate that successive application of the two methods outperforms eitherone applied exclusively, regardless of the quality of the input. The SMoG-CQRE combination for cricket pitch detectionyields an average accuracy of 98:6% in the best case (a high resolution video with good contrast) and an average accuracyof 87:9% in the worst case (a low resolution video with poor contrast). Since, the extraction of pitch frames only formsthe first step in analyzing key action frames in a match, we also present an an algorithm for player detection in theseframes.

A review of cricket Fielding requirements

Cricket is played in three formats at elite level: Test, One Day and Twenty20. Fielding is an important component of cricket, as all players are obliged to field. However, there is a paucity of literature on fielding compared with that on batting and bowling. We review the available literature in terms of technical, mental, physiological and physical factors important to fielding, to identify knowledge gaps and better understand the performance requirements of fielding in cricket.

A review of cricket Fielding requirements

Cricket is played in three formats at elite level: Test, One Day and Twenty20. Fielding is an important component of cricket, as all players are obliged to field. However, there is a paucity of literature on fielding compared with that on batting and bowling. We review the available literature in terms of technical, mental, physiological and physical factors important to fielding, to identify knowledge gaps and better understand the performance requirements of fielding in cricket.

A review of cricket Fielding requirements

Cricket is played in three formats at elite level: Test, One Day and Twenty20. Fielding is an important component of cricket, as all players are obliged to field. However, there is a paucity of literature on fielding compared with that on batting and bowling. We review the available literature in terms of technical, mental, physiological and physical factors important to fielding, to identify knowledge gaps and better understand the performance requirements of fielding in cricket.

A Survey of the Performance Demands of Cricket Fielding and Wicket-Keeping

A Survey of the Performance Demands of Cricket Fielding and Wicket-Keeping Cricket is one of the most watched team sports in the world, largely due to its popularity in Commonwealth countries. It is a game that has three formats (Test, One Day, and Twenty20) and all players are required to bat and field, whereas only some players bowl. Despite the importance of cricket fielding in the context of the game, there is a paucity of peer-reviewed research investigating fielding compared to the other components of the game. The only study which has investigated fielding skills with respect to position acknowledged the wicket-keeper as a specialist position within the fielding unit. However, despite this there have been only two studies investigating the wicket-keeper specifically. One study investigated the footwork patterns of wicket-keepers and the other investigated the forces exerted on the knees with different wicket-keeping crouch techniques.

Combinatorial Auctions for Player Selection in the Indian Premier League (IPL)

In 2008, the benefits of team formation by auction first became apparent in the field of professional cricket. The Indian Premier League organized sequential single-item auctions to allocate 77 cricketers to eight teams that participated in a Twenty20 cricket tournament. We argue in this article that the auction format used resulted in distortion of player valuations. We recommend a combinatorial auction scheme MRPF which enables bidders to exploit the complementary nature of the resources. A laboratory experiment undertaken to test the feasibility of MRPF indicated that it would result in a more efficient auction system.

Statistics and International Relations: Why Data Collection Matters

Statistics and International Relations: Why Data Collection Matters Aanchal Anand (bio) With “Looking toward the Future in the Taiwan Strait: Generational Politics in Taiwan,” Shelley Rigger demonstrates the crucial role of data collection in international relations. Had there been no provisions to run surveys and collect relevant data over the decades, there would have been no means of discovering the changing patterns of the Taiwanese identity. This, in turn, can help align foreign policy with domestic opinion. Over the years, there has been a tremendous shift in the Taiwanese people’s sense of ethnic identity: evolving from “Chinese” to “both Taiwanese and Chinese” and, finally, the most common response today, “Taiwanese.” If pre-1970s public opinion might justify the concept of “recovering the [Chinese] mainland,” the same concept can no longer be a guiding factor in cross-Strait relations given this new understanding of shifting the Taiwanese identity. Another example of how data helps understand phenomena that can ultimately guide both internal and external policy making is the work of the Levada Center in Russia. Previously called VCIOM, the Levada Center is an independent, non-governmental polling and sociological research organization in Russia.1 Since 1987, the Center has been carrying out surveys on various topics such as electoral preferences, Western values and democracy, and the opinion of the Russian middle class.2 In his recent book, The Return: Russia’s Journey from Gorbachev to Medvedev,3 Daniel Treisman relies heavily on Levada Center data. In analyzing this data he identifies a strong relationship between the index of economic sentiment—a measure of how people perceive current and future economic conditions—and the popularity of the ruling leader.4 This helps explain why Boris Yeltsin’s popularity ratings slipped with falling oil prices, and moreover, how Vladimir Putin derives most of his invincible aura from the fortunate timing of his presidential term, which coincided with a soaring international price for oil and Russia’s steady recovery after the 1998 default. Another survey from the Levada Center gives a very interesting insight into Russia’s present political sentiment. When asked, “What is more important: [End Page 79] order, even if it leads to the violation of democratic principles; or democracy, even if it gives freedom to destructive elements?” an overwhelming 81 percent percent respondents voted in favor of order in April 2000, with the remainder being split between democracy (9 percent) and difficult to answer (10 percent). The same numbers in December 2010 showed an increase in pro-democracy sentiment: order (56 percent) still won the majority vote, but democracy (23 percent) and difficult to answer (21 percent) made gains.5 This should serve as a warning to the pseudo-democratic Medvedev-Putin tandem: while a large majority of Russians still prioritize order over democracy, there has been a significant shift in favor of democracy over the past decade. Such surveys can be particularly useful in conflict management as well. As a citizen of India, I have been exposed to a range of views on India-Pakistan relations, from (a) my grandparents’ generation’s considerable animosity against Pakistan because of the partition; (b) my parents’ generation’s relative neutrality; and (c) my own generation that looks for ways to build people-to-people contact, and is more open to bridging the gap with Pakistan. But without data from surveys, like the ones Rigger uses, it is impossible to determine whether this is my personal experience or the broader consensus. If there were a way to prove that the bitterness between the countries is now restricted to the cricket field, at least among the younger generation, perhaps politicians would not so readily blame India’s neighbor for what goes wrong within domestic borders. Data collection and interpretation methods are not bulletproof. Errors like selection biases (when the sample surveyed is not reflective of the overall population), or observational errors (when a response is incorrectly recorded, or when a respondent gives an incorrect response) are bound to affect findings. Treisman himself cautions that the index of economic sentiment in Russia could have been affected by state propaganda, and was not necessarily outside the realm of influence of the head of state.4 Still...

Abnormal colour vision is a handicap to playing cricket but not an insurmountable one

Background: Two studies have reported that abnormal colour vision is under‐represented among cricketers, presumably because cricketers with abnormal colour vision have difficulty seeing the red ball against the green grass of the cricket field and the green foliage around it. We have previously reported on the difficulties of five cricketers with abnormal colour vision but we have also reported that one of Australia’s finest cricketers was a protanope. This survey was undertaken to confirm the under‐representation of abnormal colour vision among cricketers and to ascertain whether those playing tend to be (1) those with a mild colour vision deficiency, (2) bowlers rather than batsman and (3) prefer to field close to the batsman rather than in the outfield.Methods: The colour vision of 293 members of seven Melbourne Premier cricket clubs was tested using the Ishihara test. Those who failed were examined further to confirm their abnormal colour vision, to assess its severity with the Farnsworth D15 test and to classify it as either protan or deutan using the Medmont C100 test. A questionnaire about cricketing ability and problems playing cricket was administered.Results: Twenty‐six (8.9 per cent) of the cricketers had abnormal colour vision, of whom six played in the First Grade (6.7 per cent of First Grade players). The proportion of cricketers with a severe deficiency was significantly less than expected for the First Grade players. There were only two protans. Bowlers were not over‐represented among the colour vision defective cricketers but those preferring to field close to the batsman were significantly over‐represented.Conclusion: Abnormal colour vision is a modest handicap to playing cricket, especially at the higher levels of the game. It may impede batting and the ability to field in the outfield.

Time-motion analysis of first-class cricket fielding

This study aimed to quantify player movements during first-class cricket fielding. Using real-time computerised time-motion analysis the entire on-field activities of 27 in-fielders were observed for 10-over periods; 9 during each of the morning, afternoon and evening sessions of first-class cricket. In addition 8 first-class cricketers performed 15m speed trials between timing gates to provide velocity multipliers for distance estimation. Overall, players changed movement every 6.4+/-1.1s (mean+/-S.D.) and fielded the ball 0.5+/-0.4 times per over. Stationary and walking activity represented 94.2+/-2.4% of match time. High-intensity (HI) activity represented 1.6+/-0.8% of match time with mean burst and recovery durations of 1.3+/-0.3 and 99.8+/-94.5s, respectively. Repeated HI bouts (at least 3 bursts with less than 21s mean recovery) occurred 1.2 times per 10-over period. Fielders covered an estimated 15.5km per day. In conclusion, first-class fielding entails less HI activity than other team sports such as soccer and hockey. However, fielders are required to cover large distances in a day, but over 77% of these distances are covered by walking.

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Englishness and The Victorians

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for: Englishness and The Victorians

The Politics of the Aesthetic: Cricket, Literature and Empire

In his study, Maps of Englishness: Writing Identity in the Culture ofColonialisrn, Simon Gikandi suggests that cricket exemplifies the ambivalences and contradictions of colonialist culture. Cricket 'was considered, in both Victorian England and its colonies, to be the perfect expression of the values of bourgeois civility, Anglo-Saxon ethics, and public school morality', Gikandi writes, and because it was so closely linked to ideas of Englishness and nationhood, ' ... nationalists in India and the Caribbean were to posit their entry into the field of cricket as the mark of both their mastery of the culture of Englishness and their transcendence of its exclusive politics.' 1 Gikandi also notes that cricket in colonies such as India and the British West Indies worked itself out of such colonial ambivalences by radically reinventing the sport's terms of play and thus providing the colonial centre with a model of how to aesthetically reinvigorate one of its most important cultural forms.2

Establishment and Persistence of Steinernema scapterisci (Rhabditida: Steinernematidae) in Field Populations of Scapteriscus spp. Mole Crickets (Orthoptera: Gryllotalpidae)

The first successful inoculative releases of an entomopathogenic nematode, Steinernema scapterisci Nguyen and Smart, for the control of exotic pests, Scapteriscus spp. mole crickets, were made at three pasture sites in Alachua County, Florida in 1985. Based on the evaluation of field-collected crickets, the nematode was established at all sites and persisted for over 5 years. Mean yearly percentage of infected crickets ranged from 0 to 21.4% for individual release sites. Mean adult infection level for all years combined, 10.9%, was significantly greater than that for nymphs (2.5%) and infection levels for Scapteriscus borellii Giglio-Tos, 12.7%, was significantly greater than that for Scapteriscus vicinus Scudder (4.5%) for all years combined. Although 24 h trap catch results indicate mole cricket populations were significantly reduced, the nematode's effect on pest abundance could not be adequately assessed because of the variation in trap catch results and inadequate knowledge about the relationship between trap catch and the mole cricket field populations being sampled. Despite inadequacies in estimating pest abundance, the results indicate S. scapterisci has potential as a biological control agent for pest mole crickets in the genus Scapteriscus.

Cricket, carnival and street culture in the Caribbean

Taking its inspiration from C.L.R.James’s classic Beyond a Boundary, serious discussion of the relationship between cricket and society in the Caribbean has focused on three closely connected issues.1 First, and most straightforwardly, it has dwelt on the way in which the changing racial and class composition of West Indian teams since 1900 (the year of the first West Indian tour to England) has mirrored with almost preternatural precision the evolution of West Indian society over the same period, as non-white cricketers came first to challenge and eventually to overthrow the almost complete domination of West Indian cricket by members of the white plantocracy that had obtained before 1914 and which, in a modified but still perceptible form, continued into the 1950s; in this perspective, the crucial event is the appointment, in 1960, of Frank Worrell as the first non-white captain of the West Indian Test team, thus consecrating the black cricketing supremacy that had existed de facto since the mid-1940s at exactly the same time that the West Indies were painfully and with much uncertainty, attaining to political independence. Secondly, much attention has been devoted to the manner in which the West Indies’ growing prowess in international cricket has not merely reflected but may actively have stimulated the rise of nationalist (and, to some extent, racial) selfconsciousness in the British Caribbean. It was, some have argued, only when they saw their cricket team locked in combat with that of their English colonial masters that Jamaicans, Barbadians, Trinidadians and Guyanese came to see themselves as West Indians possessing a common historical, cultural and political identity transcending the insularity, isolation and inter-territorial competitiveness that many West Indians see as among the most baleful legacies of British colonialism in the Caribbean. In this view, the key date is without question 1950, the year that, to the accompaniment of steel bands, calypsos and mass enthusiasm among the newly installed West Indian migrant population, the West Indies defeated England in England for the first time, thanks to the formidable batting of the ‘three Ws’, Worrell, Weekes and Walcott, and to the scarcely credible bowling feats of ‘those two little pals of mine, Ramadhim and Valentine’,2 thereby emerging as a world cricketing power on a par with England, Australia and South Africa. It was as though-to use an image that a number of West Indian writers have applied to the colonial context3-Prospero had taught Caliban the use of bat and ball only to find himself comprehensively ‘out-magicked’ by his upstart colonial pupil, thus betraying on the cricket field the vulnerability and fallibility that were becoming more and more evident in his governance of the West Indies as a whole: after 1950, it is argued, the ‘mother country’ would never be quite the same again in West Indian eyes.

Speaking personally: mechanisms of liver injury

It would not be right on this occasion to say that it is a pleasure to be here, but it is right to say that I regard Australia, especially the cities of Melbourne and Sydney, to be a home from home and to acknowledge many dear friends in both. Born in India, and having spent most of my life in England, and a big chunk in the United States, I have a similar affection for your country as I have for the other three. The only way in which I note a distinction is on the cricket field. When England plays Australia, I want England to win. But I like India to beat both of them. This year, to everyone's amazement, the miracle happened. India wiped them all up. The U.S. doesn't play cricket, fortunately.

THE COSTUME OF THE CRICKETER

DO NOT BE A ZEBRA OR A SPOTTED LEOPARD IT IS LOW. This is what Mr. Frederick Gale, otherwise known as the Old Buffer, advised cricketers in 1887: they must positively avoid uniforms and loud dress. 'Common sense and good taste are bringing men back to better ways', he said, 'and they begin to find out that the Harlequin shirts and thunder and lightning jackets could only have been invented for the benefit of tailors and haberdashers.' This unkind crack aimed at the foremost wandering clubs, whose members were not only socially elite but also leading cricketers, is a little surprising from an old Wykehamist, who was one of the caste. Unquestionably the Old Buffer was a reactionary! The quartered shirts of the Oxford Harlequins are still a familiar sight on the rugger field, but modern cricketers wear the colours made up into caps and blazers. 'Thunder and lightning' refers to the famous I Zingari, whose colours, black, red and yellow, signifying out of darkness, through fire into light, had once been described caustically as 'the fantastic costume of a Spanish brigand, the most conspicuous part being the scarlet shirt and chapeau, very similar in shape to the common billycock, trimmed with coloured ribbons'. 'White', said Mr. Gale, 'is the colour for the cricket field, so put on your white flannel suit. And you shall have a piec~ of dandyism if you wear a straw hat, and you may wear a broad ribbon, provided it is good ribbon, dark red or purple, for instance, not a sarcenet which runs to all kinds of colours and looks like the stuff they tie cigars up with. And your straw hat must be good and shapely, and not fit your head like a beefsteak pudding.' Finally an association of ideas umelated to costume! a cricketer is advised to eat a mutton chop for breakfast. However old fashioned the Old Buffer might have been, the same could scarcely have been said of the great Dr. W.G. Grace. He was, it i~ true, a self confessed disbeliever in elaborate dress or over-particularity as to the look of his trousers or shirt when you see his portrait in the Pavilion you will, I think, appreciate what he meant. In the first decade or so of his long career (which began in 1864) it had been a common sight to see county elevens dressed in all colours of the rainbow. Now, writing on cricket dress in 1888, he still found it worth while to say, 'white is usually worn, and it certainly looks better and cooler than any other colour'. Grace informed aspiring cricketers that any player worth his salt would impress upon his tailor the momentous importance of comfortably fitting clothes. Shirts must be cut to fit easily at the shoulders and loosely at the neck. Trousers could be made either of white flannel or of a woollen cloth manufactured specially for the purpose and less prone to shrink in the wash a very import-

Bryan Ausin McSwiney 1894-1947

Bryan Austin McSwiney was born in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A., on 20 May 1894. His father was William Francis McSwiney, originally of Dublin, who had emigrated to the United States in 1890. He spent most of his childhood in the States and in 1907 he was sent to Ireland to finish his education. He entered Clongowes Wood College, Co. Kildare, and stayed there until he was sixteen. He is remembered there, in the words of the school magazine, as a ‘cheery American boy . . . and the possessor of a deadly base-ball shy which was absolutely devastating on the cricket field’. In later years he had less opportunity to demonstrate his prowess in this direction, but some of it persisted in his service at tennis which remained sufficiently devastating until his activity in this direction was cut short by a ruptured tendon of the gastrocnemius. After leaving school he spent a year of study in Germany, a short time in the United States, and in 1912 returned to Ireland to continue his education at Trinity College, Dublin. His final choice of medicine seems to have been largely accidental. Some distant relatives had been medical men, notably a second cousin who as ship’s medical officer lost his life in the Titanic disaster, but there was no particular medical tradition in his family. His original intention had, in fact, been to study law, but, when discussing the financial difficulties of pursuing this course, he was advised by a shipboard acquaintance to try his hand at medicine. This advice he fortunately took and clearly found to his liking for he soon distinguished himself, being awarded the Reuben Harvey Memorial prize for an essay on creatine and creatinine. The essay appeared in print in 1915 in the Dublin Journal of Medical Science and constitutes his first published paper.

Thomas Hughes in America

It was April 7, 1881. The boys of Rugby whispered quietly as they took their seats. A hush fell over the assembly hall as the headmaster rose to present the speaker. The boys already knew the visitor. Legends of the days when he was captain of Big Side were still current on the cricket field. More important still he had shown their beloved school to tens of thousands of readers in what was already a classic, Tom Brown's School Days. The book had gone through so many editions that both the publisher and the author had made a fortune. As a member of Parliament his ideas for social betterment had labeled him in the eyes of some people as a radical, but not a dangerous one. The boys leaned forward eagerly as the speaker rose. His high forehead pronounced him the scholar that he was, but his rosy face and twinkling eyes showed him to be a lover of the out-of-doors. Thomas Hughes began to speak: I am here today in obedience to a summons from the headmaster-embodying a wish, it would seem, of several of his colleagues, as well as a large number of boys, to give explanations and answer questions concerning a new settlement in the United States, founded in the autumn of last year by a corporation of English and Americans known as the Board of Aid to Land Ownership, and called Rugby. Then followed in full detail the reasons for the deep interest Thomas Hughes felt in the undertaking. The depressed times, he told the group, were making it almost impossible for the boys and young men of England to find a place for themselves. This vast surplus needed to find an outlet where no sense of humility attached itself to working at a bench or forge. Where, too, the driving of a plow for wages or for improving land which he owned could be done by a public school graduate without the young women of his circle looking askance at the activity. He stressed the fact that the idea spoken by Carlyle still was all too true, that the hell of an Englishman was the hell of not making money. This false standard must be destroyed if our country is to be saved and our overpopulation of younger sons, craftsmen, and middle class are to find a way out of their plight in these times. In America this is easier than