External and internal workload demands of women's twenty 20 cricket competition

To quantify the external and internal workloads of women's Twenty-Twenty (T20) cricket and compare match demands between International, National and Youth level cricket players.

A retrospective analysis of data collected form T20 matches played by Australian teams (International level, n = 3; National level, n = 12; Youth level, n = 4) during the 2016-17 Australian cricket season.

Thirty-four women's T20 cricket players playing for the Australian (International; n = 10), South Australian (National; n = 11) and South Australian Youth (Youth; n = 13) teams participated in the study. Global Positioning System devices captured player movements during matches including distance (metres [m]), PlayerLoad (arbitrary units [AU]), and distance covered at different velocities. A smartphone app was used to capture the sessional rating of perceived exertion (sRPE) for each match Multilevel mixed-effects linear regression was performed for each outcome to evaluate the differences between player level (International, National and Youth). Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05.

International players covered the most total distance per match (International players 5250 ± 1664 m, National players 4113 ± 885 m, Youth players 3436 ± 1026 m, p < 0.003 for main effect) and covered more distance at >21 km/h (i.e. high speed running; International players 73 ± 62 m, National players 31 ± 28 m, Youth players 20 ± 4 m, p < 0.003). PlayerLoad was greatest in International players (426 ± 143 AU) compared to National players (391 ± 84 AU) and Youth players (290 ± 4 0 AU) (p < 0.001). sRPE was lower for International players (352 ± 77 AU) and National players (398 ± 58 AU) compared with Youth players (499 ± 171 AU) (p < 0.005).

The external workload of women's T20 cricket matches became greater as the level of competition increased from Youth to National to International, but Youth players perceive the match demands as greater.