ORIGINAL RESEARCH Different tissue type categories of overuse injuries to cricket fast bowlers have different severity and incidence which varies with age P Blanch,3,4 M App Sc; J Orchard,2 PhD; A Kountouris,1 PhD; workloads are a risk factor because they are related to subsequent K Sims,1 PhD; D Beakley,1 M Sports Physio rapid increases (spikes) in the bowling load, which is also an identified injury risk factor.[5] 1 Cricket Australia, Brisbane, Australia The workload studies[4,5] tend to group all injuries together with 2 School of Public Health, University of Sydney, Australia the definition for an injury being the cessation of the current match 3 High Performance Department, Essendon Football Club, Melrose Dve, and/or loss of subsequent competition. This places all injuries on a Tullamarine, Australia par and negates any measure of severity. However, this is not the case [6–9] 4 School of Allied Health Sciences, Griffith University, Gold Coast, Australia with lumbar stress fractures which lead to longer periods out of the game. Corresponding author: K Sims (
[email protected]) Bowling technique is the final of the three identified risk factors in fast bowling injuries, with biomechanical research indicating a link between excessive shoulder counter-rotation and lumbar spine [8,10] Background. Cricket fast bowlers have a high incidence of injury stress fractures. Biomechanical research is often conducted on [6,11] and have been the subject of previous research investigating the adolescent or young fast bowlers or does not clearly identify the effects of previous injury, workload and technique.