The physical demand in cricket varies considerably across the three formats with more intense physical activity per unit of time experienced during limited over matches and higher absolute demand experienced during multi-day matches. But this is proven fact that fast bowlers accumulate largest physiological and physical demands mainly due to the complex nature of the bowling action imposing high horizontal and vertical ground reaction forces on the body. These factors result higher injury prevalence rate for fast bowlers (20.6%) compared to those reported in football (20%) and even rugby (12.0%). Stress fractures of the lumbar spine represent 15% of all missed playing time in cricket and up to 67% of fast bowlers will sustain this injury during their career. These injuries require significant rehabilitation which can impact a player mentally as well as financially resulting in extended absences from the game.

Latest research has identified two key factors associated with lumbar spine injuries- one relates to the bowling action and the extreme movements involved, such as shoulder counter-rotation, lateral flexion, or rotation of the spine. The second relates to the demands of bowling, typically expressed generically by the term ‘workload’. The force imparted on a cricket ball when bowled, multiplied by the distance over which the force is applied yields ‘Work’. Whereas ‘Load’ on the cricket ball can be generated by wind resistance, and friction introduced by the ball bouncing on the pitch, in transit to the batsman but neither of these relate to the physical demands experienced by the bowler.

Both subjective and objective parameters are used in today’s world of cricket to manage workload for bowlers which include physiological parameters like heart rate, lactate, rate of perceived exertion (RPE) as well as non physiological parameters like acute chronic workload ratio (ACWR), number of balls bowled, GPS variable, ball release velocity (BRV) etc. In the FITT-VP framework, frequency being measured by number of ball delivered or using logbook whereas intensity measured as BRV. Subjective study measured by RPE or VAS has its own limitation. Therefore, neither can be generalized between bowlers and hence less appropriate as a means of constructing volume-based bowling programmes. Once again this leads to a situation where calculation of volume using GPS measured variables (e.g., distance or velocity), are insufficient for calculating bowling volumes for the purpose of injury risk management. While ACWR does provide knowledge of troughs and peaks in bowling volumes, both of which are believed to increase injury risk in fast bowlers, it is yet to be confirmed as useful in managing injury risk.

Current methods for measuring demand in fast bowling are typically imprecise or insufficient in providing a foundation to build bowling volume programmes on. Critically, measures of intensity that have been used to calculate bowling volumes are either not representative of real forces or are not able to be generalized to a bowling population. Considering this, more appropriate methods are needed to develop more precise measures of bowling intensity and volume that may lead to sustainable reductions in injury risk, incidence, and prevalence.