Cricket Science and Medicine Congress in Barbados

The 3rd World Congress of Science and Medicine in Cricket (WCSMC), which is endorsed by International Council of Cricket (ICC), was hosted in Barbados from the 4th to 7th April 2007.

Dr Rajat Chauhan, a Sports and Exercise Medicine consultant at the Manipal Hospital, Bangalore in southern India, attended this conference as a faculty from India.

These scientific meetings are held at the same venue as the world cups, with England and South Africa having hosted them in 1999 and 2003.

The conference sought to arrive at a scientific understanding of why certain countries are doing well and dominating the arena of cricket while others have lagged behind over the years. The countries that are ending at the bottom of the league have few specialists in this area in comparison to some of the teams that are emerging at the top of the league.

During the 3rd WCSMC the number of representatives from different countries were as follows: Australia- 14, UK- 9, South Africa- 8, West Indies – 1 and India-1. Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and England all have institutes of sports medicine that aim to better cricketing performance. Interestingly, these four teams have been at the top of cricketing league.

In countries such as India, Pakistan, West Indies and Bangladesh there is very little scientific research being done on cricket and very few papers are presented or published. Australia's dominance in the last few world cups can be attributed to an extent, to the maximum utilization of science, medicine and technology to improve their performance.

In Australia, like in India, cricket is a very popular sport. In organized cricket programmes a total of 410,919 people participated in 2003-2004 and of these 70% were under 18 years. Australia has been using video analysis of the game long before any other nation started it. The players constantly benefited from the breakthroughs in technology, science and medicine in cricket through their institute and trainers.

The congress, in the past, had discussed topics such as physiological and psychological demands of the game and preparation for it, the biomechanics and motor control of cricket skills, the psychology of team dynamics, performance analysis and cricket injuries. Keeping the players performance in perspective, other areas such as technological aspects of cricket equipment and how these could influence the injury risk of the players were also deliberated.

Aim of the Congress:

1. To provide a state-of-the-art review of the basic, applied and clinical sciences as they relate to cricket and the impact of cricket on society.

2. To provide a forum for integrating knowledge from the contributing sciences which address key areas in the prevention and management of cricket injuries and the enhancement of performance.

3. To identify those areas where our understanding is incomplete and to encourage discussions of the challenges that face all involved in the advancement of the game of cricket.

4. To provide a forum for the dissemination of scientific information relating to cricket.