Cricket Injury Epidemiology in the Twenty-First Century: What is the Burden?

At the turn of the century, a new format of cricket [Twenty20 (T20)] was introduced that has led to more matches being played. Since then, it has been debated whether T20 cricket has increased the risk of overuse injuries. The primary aim of this study was to meta-analyse the cricket injury rates in the twenty-first century. The secondary aims were to explore the risk factors and mechanisms of injury by analysing correlates such as age, format, era of play, country, player type, etc., and to conduct a qualitative analysis of the published studies. Several databases were searched using keywords “cricket” and “injur*” and 24 papers reporting cricket injuries fitted the inclusion criteria. Fifteen papers included data on exposure time and were used to calculate injury rates to perform sub-group analysis. Pooled data on 12,511 players revealed 7627 injuries, and the 1.12 million hours of cricket play from 15 studies reporting exposure time showed an injury rate of 53.16 (95% confidence interval 51.84–54.52) per 10,000 h of play. There were no statistically significant differences in injury rates based on age, format, era of play, country, player type and injury definitions. Bowling biomechanics and workload were identified as the major risk factors for bowling injuries. This review shows that injury rates in junior and amateur cricket are higher than the injury rates of comparable cohorts playing other popular non-contact or quasi-contact team sports. There is not enough evidence to conclude that T20 cricket has increased injury rates.