Checking bowling actions in 3-D the way of the future

New Zealand's bowlers are being assessed by the latest technology in a bid to understand, and avoid, troubling back injuries in the future.

A partnership between New Zealand Cricket (NZC), the New Zealand Academy of Sport (Northern) and Auckland University has resulted in bowlers' actions being subjected to three-dimensional bio-mechanical analysis with the idea of understanding what is happening in the bowling actions.

NZC's sports science medical co-ordinator Warren Frost was emphatic the process was not about making changes for change's sake.

The process was a gold standard in international analysis and had significant potential for future assessment of bowlers.

The ideal situation would be to have all junior bowlers recorded in the system so that whenever breakdowns occurred a reference could be made from the data held in the system.

"This sort of system is increasingly essential for us. We have a small player stock and we have to look after our guys. This is one way of doing that," he said.

In the most recent analysis done, the players assessed included: Michael Mason, Warren McSkimming, Kyle Mills, Paul Hitchcock and Lance Hamilton.

Earlier assessments were done on Shane Bond, Chris Martin, Wade Cornelius, Joseph Yovich and Ian Butler.

Cornelius has been suffering from stress fractures to his back and the process had been useful in identifying adjustments he needs to make to his action.

Interestingly, the first player put through the assessment process two and a half years ago was left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori. This was unusual because there is no literature available on assessing spin bowlers. But Frost said the process had been very useful in helping to organise a recovery for Vettori from his stress fracture problems.

Similar systems have been used in Australia, South Africa and in England and while it was expensive, the use of the system was worthwhile.

"You can see things on video, but this process gives you a clinical and definitive answer," Frost said.

The complete analysis process can take two or three weeks by the time all the graphs and information presented by the computer are studied and assessed.

Another point of interest, Frost said, was that there is very little research into women's cricket and women were having similar problems to those experienced by the men and it wouldn't be resolved "until we can come to grips with the whole workload issue."