Informed player management

[Furball]

I actually agree with the vast majority of what you've written but one thing, I think, does have to be noted with this. There's a very specific reason why baseball pitchers are rotated so heavily and that's because the action of being a pitcher puts so much stress on one area of the body, eventually, virtually every season, pitchers throw their shoulders out. This is managed because, if it wasn't, well some guys would basically never pitch at that level again (some, not at any level).

I mean, check this out, this poor ****, Joel Zumaya, fractured his goddamn elbow just from pitching. Given, Zumaya's at the extreme end of for speed (average of 99mph on the gun, I believe) but still, massive risks for that area of the body that absolutely need to be managed with 150+ games in a regular baseball season. Zumaya was put out for a year with that injury (definitely wasn't his first either) and isn't expected to get to the speeds he was producing ever again. The same consequences don't quite hold true for quicks in cricket, I think.

Absolutely some level of rotation is necessary between games but within games, I dunno. It's been mooted many times before but I'm guessing the paucity of career-ending injuries has answered the question before even being asked, especially since blokes are even less likely to have career-ending injuries these days probably because of rotation between games.

How many quick bowlers, particularly young quick bowlers, have broken down with some sort of stress fracture in the last 10 years though? The physical demands of a fast bowler's action, combined with the intensity of the international schedule has to be playing a role.

Baseball might provide a more extreme example of what I'm talking about but I really don't get the rage at a policy that's a) designed to give players a bit of R&R when they're diagnosed with minor injuries in order to prevent them developing into major injuries - DK Lillee might have opted to bowl through it, but he also lost 2 years of his career to a back injury - and b) manage the number of overs bowled by a quick bowler in a similar way that a baseball pitcher's workload is managed, although granted there's less risk in overbowling a fast bowler.

Saying "oh there's no rotation tradition in cricket, it makes the players sad" is a load of bull****.

edit: when it comes to the "informed" part of informed player management, I accept that there's every possibility that the science behind Cricket Australia's rotation policy is wrong and they're barking up the wrong tree. But I think Cricket Australia are to be commended for at least trying to find an answer to why a serious injury seems to be accepted as a rite of passage for a young fast bowler and working on ways to minimise the amount of time that their bowlers spend on the treatment table nursing serious injuries.

 

[Top_Cat]

How many quick bowlers, particularly young quick bowlers, have broken down with some sort of stress fracture in the last 10 years though?

I'd say the vast majority of Aussie quicks in the past 20 years have had back stress fractures. It's not a career ending injury any more at least and some guys have come back as quick if not quicker. Lillee only bowled through the pain because he had no idea what he was dealing with and, eventually, he just couldn't bowl any more.

Personally, I've only noticed rage against the rotation policy from fans and some ex-players. The players themselves have been largely sanguine about it and I think that's because it has applied to everyone. You're less worried about looking over your shoulder when the guy you're being rotated out for also gets his time on the bench.

Back in the old days, because there was no rotation, even the best and quickest had to bowl off short run-ups or half-rat just to keep on the park. Now, players rest but they're going at 100% when they're on the park. It's a trade-off.

 

[the big bambino]

Australia probably have the best fast bowling stocks of any Test nation (by best I mean the number of quality options, not necessarily the quality of those options.)

Don't really understand that but as far as rotation goes I'd prefer it wasn't needed but concede with our present group of pace bowlers it probably is needed.

 

[Arachnodouche]

There's two schools of thought, in strength training anyway. One advocates rest, the other forces the body to adapt. Elite weightlifters lift twice a day, 6 days a week. It's like trying to deadlift a couple of plates wearing a belt. You're sheltering your back for the time being, but you're also preventing muscles from sufficiently developing, and are setting yourself up for a worser setback in the future when you have to go in without a belt. Same analogy.

Of course, you don't go at max intensity or volume, day in and day out. Those factors are monitored closely.

When I first saw Warne bowl, I just thought he was lazy to run up properly and ambled in because he was fat.

 

[Top_Cat]

What I would say to the above is that you're training muscles and using them with big levers and minimal involvement of joint areas. Cricket, especially quick bowling, you're using said levers but also joints/tendons/ligaments with harsh twisting motions, stuff which you can't strengthen but you sure can snap. Worse, they won't bounce back as well as they were moving pre-injury and, in teh case of stress fractures, you generally have to re-jig your action quite a bit, therefore requiring a lot of muscular re-training and attendant risk of new injuries.

The best way to minimise that is, obviously, to avoid it which means you sit the occasional game out. Better attitudes toward training have helped to lower the chance of most muscular injuries but there are others that you can't train so are just best avoided. A rotation policy is a crucial part of that.

 

[Son Of Coco]

There might not be contact like in AFL but fast bowling in particular is extremely physically demanding thanks to the stresses put on the body during the action of delivering the ball.

That there's no tradition of resting players in cricket is utterly meaningless. As is Warne's assertion that it's not neccessary. He's played at the highest level, big deal. It doesn't mean he can't be wrong.

The closest sporting relation to cricket is baseball. Major League Baseball teams have loads of pitchers on their rosters who are rotated throughout the course of a game, nevermind season. Maybe it's baseball which has it wrong, and managing players workloads is new age crap? Maybe baseball could learn from cricket and just have its pitchers pitch until they can't pitch any more?

I've looked to take up running this year (I can't run just now due to injury but that's another story). Literally every resource I've read on the web or in magazines, whether it's about running training or strength training, really stresses the importance of rest in a training schedule. If you constantly push your body too hard, you'll eventually break down with an injury. The same applies for any sport. Cricket's fast bowlers are no different.

Bowlers rotate throughout a game too...they're not bowling for 5 days straight with no rest. Players also get rest between games.

I ended up with a pretty sore back bowling during my teens, so I'm not saying there's nothing in managing players through their late teens and early twenties. By the time I was 24 and started playing cricket again I had no problems with my back at all.

On the other hand, I think Australia are trying to be a little too precious with their players at the moment. If a bloke is bowling well and feels fine then let him play another game. Being told you have to sit out because Joe Boffin said so can't sit well with the players (in fact we know it hasn't with some). People develop differently, so applying a blanket rule to everyone who plays is a bit silly.

The funny thing is, I can't remember us having as many injuries to bowlers as we have in the past few years, yet we're in an age where we're using all the available technology to try to prevent them. In saying that though, Jason Gillespie probably had enough injuries to cover our whole squad at the moment.

 

[Dan]

The funny thing is, I can't remember us having as many injuries to bowlers as we have in the past few years, yet we're in an age where we're using all the available technology to try to prevent them. In saying that though, Jason Gillespie probably had enough injuries to cover our whole squad at the moment.

Of all the genuinely quick bowlers we've brought in at young ages in the past 30-odd years, most have broken down throughout their careers. Bruce Reid came in young, done by 29 because he was bowled into the ground very early on. Craig McDermott struggled with injuries. Gillespie, as you say, was chronically injured until 2002/03ish.

Lillee lost 2 years of his career to his back, Brett Lee consistently broke down throughout his career. Carl Rackemann was probably worth more than 11 tests were it not for his body.

The only one to survive his formative years unscathed, from what I can gather, was Glenn McGrath.

 

[Top_Cat]

Reckon that's put down to not playing intensely until he made a grade side, much like Ambrose who had a similarly spotless injury record. Even then, he twice missed an entire season due to intercostal muscle injuries.

 

[vic_orthdox]

We've rotated bowlers a lot longer than baseball have pitchers. They're called "overs".

 

[Top_Cat]

You're over!

 

[social]

Rising from the Ashes after India humiliation

According to this article, Pattinson has bowled bowled more deliveries in test cricket at his age than any other bowlers in the history of Australian test cricket other than Craig McDermott and Graham McKenzie.

That is an amazing stat

Furthermore, when you consider that Starc is only 2 months older, Hazelwood nearly a year younger and Cummins a full 3 years younger then we really are in unchartered waters as regards squad management and I think it's right to err on the side of caution