Abdominal wall injuries at the elite level in Australian male professional cricketers

Background: Injuries to the abdominal wall, particularly muscular injuries, are relatively common in professional cricketers. The Cricket Australia injury database holds data on these injuries over a 20 years span. Methods: This study is a combination of (1) a descriptive outline of the parameters associated with side strains and abdominal wall injuries in elite male cricketers, based on deidentified data extraction from the Cricket Australia database from 1995 to 1996 and 2014 to 2015; (2) multivariate regression analysis of risk factors for abdominal wall strains, taking into account the risk factors of player position, player age and previous abdominal wall injury history. Results: There were 183 injuries recorded over a 20 years period at Australian state or national player level. Significant risk factors in logistic regression analysis were: being a Pace Bowler RR 10.0 (95% CI 3.1-32.1) and being 24 years old or younger RR 3.4 (95% CI 1.7-6.8). Surprisingly, there was only minimal risk increase, not reaching statistical significance, for recent injury in the same season (p = 0.18) and no association at all with past injury in previous season (p = 0.99). Discussion: The internal oblique muscle is reported the most commonly injured component of the abdominal wall, the injuries are overwhelmingly sustained by pace bowlers and the peak incidence of the injury is in the early part of the cricket season. Younger fast bowlers are more likely to be injured than older ones. A history of abdominal wall strain in either the recent or distant past does not increase or decrease future risk of strain, which is in contrast to other muscle strains.