Negative association between injuries and team success in professional cricket: A 9-year prospective cohort analysis

Objectives: To examine the relationship between injuries and team success in professional cricket.

Design: Prospective cohort analysis.

Methods: A prospective cohort of all match time-loss injuries and County Championship point tallies for nine seasons (from 2010 to 2018 inclusive) for all 18 First-Class County Cricket (FCCC) cricket teams in England and Wales. Two injury measures of match time-loss injury incidence and burden were assessed for within-team (linear mixed model on season-to-season changes) and between-team (correlation on differences averaged over all seasons) effects. County Championship league points tally was used as the measure of team success.

Results: A moderate negative correlation was found between injury burden and team performance (r=-0.36; 90% CI -0.66 to 0.05; likely negative, P=0.15). A reduction in match injury incidence of 2 match time-loss injuries per 1000 days of play (90% CI 1.4-2.9, P=0.10) within a team, or a reduction in match injury burden of 75 days per 1000 days of play (90% CI 50-109, P=0.053) in any given season was associated with the smallest worthwhile change in County Championship points (+13 points) for Division 1, but not for Division 2.

Conclusion: Moderate reductions in injury burden are associated with potentially worthwhile effects on performance for a domestic cricket team in the County Championship Division 1.