Eye Specialists in cricket

[keeper]

Clive Woodward used a 'visual awareness' coach for English Rugby. Some football clubs use eye specialists (there is a theory that players coming back from lengthy injury layoffs have inferior peripheral vision.

Does anyone know if cricket teams use eye/vision specialists? If so, what do they do?

 

[Turbinator]

These bots are becoming more and more knowledgeable.

 

[SteveNZ]

Weak first reply. I'm actually intrigued as to whether this is the case.

I know from my own instance, my fielding has gone downhill in the last couple of years and after having an eye test last week we could put a finger on why. Always thought I had great eyesight, but far from the case.

 

[Athlai]

Vettori is an ambassador for specsavers

 

[Tricia McMillan]

Vettori is an ambassador for specsavers

Damn you, I came in here to make a comment about him too.

 

[keeper]

Weak first reply. I'm actually intrigued as to whether this is the case.

I know from my own instance, my fielding has gone downhill in the last couple of years and after having an eye test last week we could put a finger on why. Always thought I had great eyesight, but far from the case.

My reasoning is partly curiosity out of what happens at top-level cricket, but also personal as well. I wear contacts so have my actual eyesight checked fairly often. Suspect there is more to it than that and wonder if the eye can be trained or exercised to improve ball tracking, focusing etc?

 

[SteveNZ]

Agreed, I'm intrigued to know for the same reasons

I know Martin Crowe went through a bunch of reaction and vigourous eye tests before his (short) comeback this year.

 

[BoyBrumby]

I vaguely recall reading an article about Bradman's eyesight. The great man had preternaturally good hand/eye co-ordiantion, famously honed by the long hours he spent hitting a golf ball into a water tank with a stump. The assumption was he had great eyesight to go along this, but on testing his vision was bang in the median range.

I'm always a bit distrustful of this kind of funkeh thinking; Woodward introduced a whole heap of cod-innovative emphemeral stuff and beacuse he won the Webb Ellis Trophy it gets more credence than it probably deserves. England won the world cup under Sir Clive because, for a glorious 18 month window, we were the best team in the world, not because he employed a vision expert or feng shuied the bin where the soiled jock straps are chucked into.

The blown Grand Slams (98, 99, 00, 01 & 02), the humilating Lions tour to NZ in 2005 and the less than stellar spell as director of something at Southampton tend to get slightly glossed over.

In his excellent book On & Off The Field Ed Smith dimisses such woolly novelties as an adjunct to the understandable desire to copy winning teams. He makes the reasonable observation that an awful lot more losing teams are doing exactly the same things.

 

[Ruckus]

I vaguely recall reading an article about Bradman's eyesight. The great man had preternaturally good hand/eye co-ordiantion, famously honed by the long hours he spent hitting a golf ball into a water tank with a stump. The assumption was he had great eyesight to go along this, but on testing his vision was bang in the median range.

Tis' mentioned at the start of this vid by Benaud too:

Sir Donald Bradman speaks on Sachin Tendulkar - YouTube

 

[keeper]

This link, under the section Visual Skills, describes some of the things that might matter. They seem to make sense and suggest strong eyes is about a lot more than strength of vision.

sportsvision

No closer though to knowing what can be done about any of it - that's what I'd really like to learn...

 

[Goughy]

Cricketers have used eye specialists and eye exercises for years-- Im pretty sure I have posted at least one brief thing about this topic on here but Im not sure how easy it would be to search for.

It has come a long way from the days when Dermott Reeve used to work on speed of focus by driving top speed down the motorway, looking at signs and then quickly looking at the speedo and seeing how long the eye takes to re-focus from the distant to the near. He used to do this repeatedly to 'train' the eyes.

Now, most top teams, and even universities will do cricket-specific exercises designed to improve different aspects of sight.

 

[Burgey]

Neil Harvey had his eyes checked during a tour of South Africa and was asked by the optician afterwards "Who leads you out to bat?"

 

[SteveNZ]

It must have got even worse over the years, because nothing looks as good as it used to as far as Mr Harvey is concerned...

 

[Top_Cat]

Personally wish there was more research done in foveal vs peripheral vision as it applies to sports as I strongly suspect the whole thing about some players having better eyes than others is more of a cognitive than a sensory advantage.

 

[Jono]

Neil Harvey had his eyes checked during a tour of South Africa and was asked by the optician afterwards "Who leads you out to bat?"

Don't lie, that was just what the eye specialist told you two days ago at OPSM.

 

[keeper]

Cricketers have used eye specialists and eye exercises for years-- Im pretty sure I have posted at least one brief thing about this topic on here but Im not sure how easy it would be to search for.

It has come a long way from the days when Dermott Reeve used to work on speed of focus by driving top speed down the motorway, looking at signs and then quickly looking at the speedo and seeing how long the eye takes to re-focus from the distant to the near. He used to do this repeatedly to 'train' the eyes.

Now, most top teams, and even universities will do cricket-specific exercises designed to improve different aspects of sight.

Searching for eye exercises yields a lot more than anything specific about cricket or sports. It appears as if it has been subject to some fairly wild claims about helping to avoid the need for glasses/lenses. Intuitively, though, I feel they could have some benefit when it comes to ball tracking and quicker focusing. I'm going to give it a try because I need all the help I can get.