A coordinated approach to medical and sports science issues in cricket
The ICC Medical Committee met for the first time in May 2008. The Committee’s chair, Peter Harcourt, explains why a greater focus on medical and sports science issues can help benefit the global game and its participants.
It was a daunting task trying to set an agenda for the first ever ICC Medical Committee meeting as there are so many potential topics to discuss in the fields of sports medicine and science.
When you look at all of the issues, however, we found that there were two clear themes that would guide us in all of our decision-making – protecting the health of cricket’s participants and maintaining the integrity of the game – and everything we do will be referenced back to these two priorities.
At the very top of our agenda are anti-doping issues. Cricket has made some significant progress over the last 18 months but it still has ground to make up on some of the other leading team sports.
The commitment of the ICC to embrace the necessary changes to its anti-doping Code and processes was evident during our first meeting and I am confident that positive progress will continue. It is now important for all of the leading Member countries to implement their own WADA-compliant national anti-doping codes as a high priority.
It was impressive to see how committed the ICC staff are to offering support to Member countries as they undertake this task and there can really be no excuses for Members that do not have a WADA-compliant Code in place by the middle of 2009.
To ensure that cricket’s voice is heard on doping issues in the wider international community we have recently joined a network of major international team sports and this interaction will benefit the whole of the sport.
The issue of illegal bowling actions remains a high priority for the ICC for obvious integrity reasons and the key area in which our Committee will provide assistance is in ensuring consistency of testing.
To ensure this we are in the process of reviewing the current laboratory testing protocols for players with suspected illegal actions and we will tighten and strengthen these if required.
Ultimately the goal is to be able to review players’ actions in match conditions and it is pleasing that the ICC has recently commissioned a major research project that will determine if current technologies are capable of providing accurate ‘in-game’ results in a non-intrusive manner.
Looking slightly further ahead we hope to be able to promote consistency in the medical facilities that are provided at international cricket venues and to develop a standard process for the recording of cricket injuries so that good practices can be shared and players can benefit from better injury avoidance and management strategies.
One area which we need to look into more closely is the impact of playing of cricket in extreme heat. The committee noted that there is more and more international cricket being scheduled in very hot weather conditions and we think it is important that correct steps are taken to protect the health of athletes in these circumstances. The ICC already has some sensible guidelines in place that enable the taking of extra drinks but this is clearly an area that merits further research and we hope to commence a project to look into this from 2009.
The ICC Medical Committee comprises five members drawn from four continents and it was clear from our initial meeting that there are many common issues across the cricket world. It is my hope that we can expand our network to embrace all of the medical and sports science specialists working in international cricket because at the end of the day we all share those same two priorities – protecting the health of cricket’s participants and maintaining the integrity of the game.