Cricket: Fast bowling arm actions and the illegal delivery law in men's high performance cricket matches

This study investigated the bowling arm kinematics of 21 elite fast bowlers (mean ± SD; age = 27.8 ± 3.9 years) while performing in test, tour and one day international matches. Thirty‐one of the 34 deliveries analysed exhibited straightening at the elbow joint (straightening min = 3°, max = 22°, mean ± SD = 9 ± 5°), which by strict definition in the 2000 laws of cricket made them illegal. Five deliveries from three bowlers exhibited hyperextension of the bowling elbow (19 + 5°). When assessed against an arbitrary threshold of 15° for elbow straightening, ball speeds for deliveries above this threshold (39.5 ± 2.0 m/s) were significantly faster (effect size = 1.4; p = 0.006) than deliveries below it (37.1 ± 1.4 m/s). When grouped by delivery length, the bouncers and short deliveries recorded more elbow straightening (12 ± 6.6°) than the good length deliveries (9 ± 4.4°) and the full deliveries (8 ± 5.7°), although these were not statistically significant differences. The results of this study sup...