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Recently I came across something on cricket bowling in my old departmental
files that may be of interest to anyone who lives in the cricket playing
countries of the world. The attached file furnishes a preliminary
biomechanical analysis carried out by one of my graduate students in the
School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand on
the controversial bowling action of one of South Africa's remarkable spin
bowlers, Paul Adams.
This student has now moved to the University of Cape Town, where he is
fortunate to be under the excellent supervision of Dr Kit Vaughn who returned
to S Africa after teaching for many years in North America. Apparently he
has now extended this work considerably and will be taking this project even
further when he completes his Masters in the near future. As a cricket fan
of many years' standing and a keen university level player for several years,
I look most forward to seeing what emerges from this research.
It would be interesting to hear from others of any more up-to-date work that
has been done on the mechanics of both spin and quick bowling. What is of
special interest to me are the kinesiological differences between the
delivery actions of cricket bowling and baseball pitching, especially since
the ballistic winding up action in baseball seems to produce a large number
of 'rotator cuff' injuries. Even if one examines the throwing actions of top
cricketing fielders and baseball fieldsmen (not necessarily bowlers or
pitchers), the baseballer appears to use a far greater degree of lateral
rotation of the humerus.
Has anyone here come across a comparison of the normal throwing actions of
cricketers and baseballers to ascertain which technique is more efficient and
safer? Certainly, the situation and types of delivery are different to suit
the rules of the game, but it would still be interesting to have a few more
facts and figures about delivery styles as they relate to release velocity,
ball control, shoulder integrity and so forth. Any offers?
The attached file is in a virus-scanned pdf format and may be opened by means
of Adobe Acrobat Reader which may be downloaded free for MAC or PC from the
Adobe website.
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
mcsiff@aol.com
files that may be of interest to anyone who lives in the cricket playing
countries of the world. The attached file furnishes a preliminary
biomechanical analysis carried out by one of my graduate students in the
School of Mechanical Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand on
the controversial bowling action of one of South Africa's remarkable spin
bowlers, Paul Adams.
This student has now moved to the University of Cape Town, where he is
fortunate to be under the excellent supervision of Dr Kit Vaughn who returned
to S Africa after teaching for many years in North America. Apparently he
has now extended this work considerably and will be taking this project even
further when he completes his Masters in the near future. As a cricket fan
of many years' standing and a keen university level player for several years,
I look most forward to seeing what emerges from this research.
It would be interesting to hear from others of any more up-to-date work that
has been done on the mechanics of both spin and quick bowling. What is of
special interest to me are the kinesiological differences between the
delivery actions of cricket bowling and baseball pitching, especially since
the ballistic winding up action in baseball seems to produce a large number
of 'rotator cuff' injuries. Even if one examines the throwing actions of top
cricketing fielders and baseball fieldsmen (not necessarily bowlers or
pitchers), the baseballer appears to use a far greater degree of lateral
rotation of the humerus.
Has anyone here come across a comparison of the normal throwing actions of
cricketers and baseballers to ascertain which technique is more efficient and
safer? Certainly, the situation and types of delivery are different to suit
the rules of the game, but it would still be interesting to have a few more
facts and figures about delivery styles as they relate to release velocity,
ball control, shoulder integrity and so forth. Any offers?
The attached file is in a virus-scanned pdf format and may be opened by means
of Adobe Acrobat Reader which may be downloaded free for MAC or PC from the
Adobe website.
Dr Mel C Siff
Denver, USA
mcsiff@aol.com