R Hartman: Limited overs protect young bowlers (6 Oct 1997)

5 October 1997

Limited overs protect young bowlers

Rodney Hartman

It is difficult to dispute the enduring view that cricket remains the most innovative force in South African sport. It its latest imaginative project, the United Cricket Board have laid down new playing conditions to protect young fast bowlers from injuries that could prematurely curtail of even cripple their careers.

According to the new system, pace bowlers in various age groups will be allowed to bowl only a certain number of overs and spells at any time. There will also be carefully timed practices and warm-up procedures. Even the committee set up to investigate the agonising problem has a certain instructive ring to it; one of its members goes by the apt surname of Stretch. He is the former Border Cricket Union president Richard Stretch, who is currently the Professor of Human Movement Sciences at the University of Port Elizabeth. The committee, chaired by the ubiquitous Tim Noakes, Professor of Sports Science at the University of Cape Town and includes former fast bowlers, who have felt the pain, Mike Proctor and Clive Rice. After exhaustive research, both here and n Australia, the committee has concluded that cricketers under the age of 23 are particularly prone to stress fractures of the lower back because their spines are still immature. Australia's ace young fast bowler Jason Gillespie, it the latest in a long line of international victims of this and, here at home, the promising Gauteng fast bowler David Terbrugge has only now returned to top action after an enforced two-season layoff. Reports of his most recent performances for his province in Australia are very favourable.

At more junior level, the vice-captain of the PG Bison SA under 15 team that toured England, the highly touted Dale College pace bowler Malibongwe Maketa, has recently broken down and the research confirms that such cases will continue to plague the game if no remedy is offered.

The UCB's managing director, Ali Bacher, this week release details on the restrictions on young bowlers from under-19 down to under-12 levels. These will be enforced in all matches under the UCB's jurisdiction - with a recommendation to all schools and clubs that they follow suite. It is expected that a booklet will soon be produced and distributed to the schools.

At under-19 level, for example, a fast bowler will be limited to three spells of six overs with approximately one hour breaks in between. Practices will be three sessions of 40 minutes a week during which there will be restrictions on bowling flat out. So again, cricket is looking to protect and strengthen is base in whatever way is necessary; it is also casting its net wider to increase its nursery. Almost R1-million of its vast new MTN sponsorship is being ploughed into the nine geographic regions that constitute cricket's country districts, a sector of South African cricket that has been consistently been neglected. This money is used to employ 18 full-time co-ordinators who will take responsibility for developing country district cricketers in the nine regions, all the way from primary school to club and representative levels. The man behind the project is the energetic Mike Doherty of Griqualand West, a member of the UCB's executive committee and a staunch believer in the potential of the country areas.

As Bacher points out, "This has been one area of neglect. In Australia, for example, many top players have come from the country districts." He might have added that the most famous of these was Sir Donald Bradman, who was born in the country village of Cootamundra in New South Wales and spent most of his boyhood in Bowral, 150 km from Sydney.

Source:: Sunday Times