This was a prospective study to study the pattern of injuries in cricket players of North India. The study involved 95 players (composed of the Punjab Ranji Trophy team, the district teams of Punjab involved in cricket camps and the under 19 teams of the Punjab Cricket Association). The study period extended from 1st November 2008 to 31st October 2009 over one year comprising one playing season and one off season of six months each. The season in our set up is defined as time period when players play competitive matches whereas off season is defined as the one when players keep on practicing daily and often play local matches on weekends.
All the players associated with these teams were identified with the help of the Coaches and Physiotherapists and Trainers of the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA). They were evaluated at the start of the season, using the proforma designed at our institution. The player type was identified, and was categorized into a group i.e. bowler, batsman, wicket keeper and all-rounder. Categorization of the players was done on the basis of the description by the coaches and by the players themselves. Bowlers were further divided into fast and slow bowlers. A fast bowler [10] was defined as a bowler for whom the wicketkeeper would normally stand back from the stumps, due to the increased speed of the ball when bowled. All rounders were categorised as the ones who put equal effort both in bowling and batting during practice. The players who did not bowl, and were categorized as batsman.
These players were followed up regularly during the periodic training camps of PCA. The players were also serially contacted by telephone once every three months over one calendar year. The practice profile of the player, any history of injury (including number of days of practice/ number of matches missed) was recorded. The injuries were commonly reported by the physiotherapists and sometimes the researchers were directly informed of the injury by the players.
A detailed record of the practice profile of each player was kept. All injury definitions were as per the Cricket Australia model defined by Dr. John Orchard [11] with a few modifications. One unique definition included in the study has been the introduction of the term “all rounder” for purposes of player type classification. Most of the all rounders are batsmen who can bowl a bit, mostly slow spin bowling; some bowlers on the other hand exhibit more than average batting skills. Thus it was important to evaluate if this subgroup had a different injury or practice profile.
All injuries to the upper limb region were analyzed. The information obtained was recorded and entered in a computerized data base. Microsoft Excel (Redland, WA, U.S.A.) was used to store and analyze the data. For the purpose of comparison, the calculated injury incidence included injuries sustained during match as well as during practice.
Orchard et al [11] defined injury prevalence as the percentage of players missing through injury for each match. It was calculated by using a numerator of “missed player games” with a denominator of number of games, multiplied by number of squad members. However for this study, the prevalence was calculated based on the total number of “playing days” missed by the Cricketers due to injury. Hence the numerator used was missed player days multiplied by number of injured players with the denominator of average number of practice days multiplied by total number of players. To calculate this, the total number of days a player is either unable to play matches or practice cricket were taken into account. This is different from calculations based on only “match days” lost. So another deviation in this study from the international definitions was the inclusion of injuries which only caused missed time from practice.