Elsevier

Physical Therapy in Sport

Volume 9, Issue 1, February 2008, Pages 34-39
Physical Therapy in Sport

Original research
Shoulder injury in professional cricketers

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ptsp.2007.08.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

To describe the impact of shoulder injuries on professional cricketers during the 2005 England and Wales first class cricket season.

Design

Professional cricketers in England were asked to complete two questionnaires relating to shoulder injuries. Players who returned both questionnaires were included in this study.

Main outcome measurements

The impact of any shoulder pain whilst playing cricket, impaired cricketing performance and shoulder injury related problems during training and activities of daily living.

Results

One hundred and fifty eight of a total of 378 players (42%) returned both questionnaires. Twenty-three per cent of the participants described shoulder injury during the 2005 season. Injury prevalence (the percentage of players not available for selection in a match due to shoulder injury) was 1.7%. Sixty-four per cent of shoulder injured players often or always had associated problems when fielding, and 58% of shoulder injured players fielded in a specific position to avoid shoulder injury related problems. Eighteen per cent of all study participants felt pain on throwing at some stage during the survey period.

Conclusions

Professional cricketers generally play on with shoulder injuries without missing matches, though their performance, especially during fielding, is often compromised. Research into the diagnoses, aetiology, appropriate treatment and prevention of shoulder injuries in cricket is required.

Introduction

In 2005, internationally agreed injury surveillance methods for professional cricket were published which provide an important framework for comparison of patterns of injury occurrence within and between cricket playing nations (Orchard et al., 2005). However, there are inherent limitations in these injury surveillance methods in identifying the true burden of injuries in cricket. This is because the internationally agreed system only includes injuries that prevent a player from being fully available for selection in a major match; or during a major match, causes a player to be unable to bat, bowl, or keep wicket when required by either the rules or the team's captain. As in most elite level sports some cricketers continue to play despite being injured. Those injuries are not included in official injury surveillance data as they do not meet the stated definition of an ‘injury’. Therefore, the true extent and impact of injury problems that are ‘played through’ are unknown.

The prevalence of shoulder injuries, i.e. the average proportion of players missing through injury (Orchard et al., 2005), for the 2002 England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) professional cricket season was 0.8% (Newman, 2003). Australian injury surveillance data encompassing the years 1995–2001, does not give overall figures, but states shoulder injury prevalence amongst batters as 0.3%, pace bowlers 0.9% and spin bowlers 1.1% (Orchard, James, Alcott, Carter, & Farhart, 2002). Orchard, James, and Portus (2006) Orchard et al. (2006) gives a mean seasonal shoulder injury incidence, i.e. the number of injuries per squad per season, over a 10-year period as 1.1 with a mean prevalence of 0.9%. However, in contrast to these relatively low reported shoulder injury incidence and prevalence rates under the international consensus definitions, data from studies of elite junior and senior professional cricketers indicates that a relatively high number of cricketers may be affected by shoulder injury (Bell-Jenje, 2003).

The primary aim of this study was to determine the impact of shoulder injury in professional cricketers on various aspects on fielding, batting and bowling, along with training and activities of daily living. A further aim was to estimate the proportion of England and Wales first class county cricketers who experienced any form of shoulder injury during the 2005 season and to establish the prevalence of shoulder injuries amongst the study participants.

Section snippets

Methods

Physiotherapists of all 18 professional first class county cricket clubs in England and Wales were asked to administer two questionnaires to all contracted players during the 2005 cricket season. One, administered in June, related to shoulder injuries present during April and May and the other, administered in September, to shoulder injuries present in June, July and August. Therefore, this study did not quite consider the whole season as the last questionnaire was distributed early in

Results

There were 378 contracted players at the 18 counties at the beginning of the 2005 cricket season. In all, 158 returned both questionnaires and were therefore included in the study. This represented a response rate of 42%. The mean age of the players was 27 years (range 17–39 years).

Of the 158 players who returned both questionnaires, 132 (84%) recorded that they were predominantly right handed for throwing and 26 (16%) were left handed for throwing.

Discussion

This research identifies a problem of shoulder injuries in professional cricketers in England and Wales. There is currently no published literature that demonstrates the extent of this problem. The data confirms our hypothesis that shoulder injuries cause impairment of cricketing performance, though cricketers often continue to play with these problems and so the extent and impact of these injuries will not be highlighted in injury surveillance data (Newman, 2003; Orchard, James, Alcott,

Conclusion

Shoulder injuries in cricketers are common and can become chronic or recurrent. Despite this, affected cricketers generally play on without missing matches, yet their performance is compromised by changing position in the field to avoid throwing from the outfield. Bowling and batting are only occasionally affected, yet it is specialist batters who are more often affected by shoulder injury than those who bowl or keep wicket. This study has described the substantial impact that shoulder injuries

Conflict of Interest Statements

The authors do not foresee any conflict of interest in publishing this paper. If further information is required in regard to this please email the required details to [email protected].

Ethical Statement

This research was approved by the University of Nottingham ethics committee. If further information is required in regard to this please email the required details to [email protected].

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