Off-side front foot drives in men's high performance cricket

We investigated the techniques used by nine right-handed, international batsmen to perform front foot off-side drives in first class and international matches. All strokes were captured using two synchronised high-speed video cameras; nine were selected for kinematic analysis. These movement sequences were then manually digitised at a sampling frequency of 125 Hz using APAS motion analysis software. The results of this study indicated that the batsmen used movement patterns that enabled important aspects of stroke production, such as the front stride and the downswing of the bat, to be delayed so that additional information from ball flight could be assimilated. Front upper limb segments were constrained to work in a unitary fashion, with the peak horizontal end point speed of each segment occurring almost simultaneously just before impact. It has been suggested that these strategies serve to enhance stroke accuracy. Other aspects of their techniques included a distinctively looped bat path, a front foot placement that occurred only just before impact, and a front ankle that was positioned well inside the line of the ball at impact. Various technical parameters, such as the alignment of the trunk relative to ground and the continuous flow of the bat between the backswing and downswing, were similar to findings in previous batting research. Other characteristics of stroke production not previously addressed, including the path of the bat and the timing of the front stride, may challenge some long held beliefs evident in current coaching literature.