MECHANICS OF REAR LEG MOTION IN CRICKET FAST BOWLING

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to calculate the kinematics and kinetics of the rear leg drive in fast bowling, and then investigate whether any of these variables are associated ball release speed. Eighteen young fast bowlers (17.2 ±1.7 years) were recruited from the Cricket NSW development squad, and their bowling actions captured by a Cortex 2.0 motion analysis system. The data shows that rear leg drive primarily consisted of hip and knee motions in the flexion-extension plane, subject to a complex control strategy involving time-varying torques. The most prominent kinematic feature was rear knee extension velocity (r=0.55, p=0.019), which was moderately correlated with ball speed. However, more research is needed to evaluate the control of this variable, since none of the rear leg joint torques was correlated with rear knee extension velocity.