Fielding specific walk/run patterns in English professional Cricket

In cricket research, players are typically categorized by role. However, players of a certain role, for instance fast bowlers may not consistently field in the same position which leads to inaccurate representations of the physical demands of fielding. To identify fielding specific movement demands across three cricket formats (4 multi-day, 6 one day, 4 T20), 14 professional male cricketers had positional movements determined with 10 Hz Optimeye S5 (Catapult, Melbourne, Australia) global positioning system (GPS) units. Players observed fielding in 35 common cricket locations were described as either being in a stationary catching, 30m ring or boundary position. Data were totalled in movement velocities bands: Walking (<7 km/h), Jogging (7 - 15 km/h), Striding (15 - 20 km/h), High speed running (20 - 25 km/h), Sprinting (> 25 km/h), and further classified into low intensity running (walking and jogging) or high intensity running (HIR). The HIR running was significantly different for each fielding position within each game format. Boundary fielders covered the most HIR distance per hour (930 ± 1085 m/h) in One day compared to multiday (889 ± 435 m/h) and Twenty20 (T20) (628 ± 438 m/h) formats. Similarly, 30m ring fielders also covered relatively greater distance in the One day format (594 ± 286 m/h) compared to multi-day and T20 formats (227 ± 345, 170 ± 165 m/h) respectively. The catching positions had similar hourly demands between Multi-day (370 ± 291 m/h) and One day (385 ± 342 m/h) formats. This study identifies that the boundary positions have the greatest HIR demands across all three cricket formats. When setting a field, captains should be mindful not only of position-specific skill requirements, but also of movement speed, fitness characteristics and within-session recovery needs of players. This information is able to better inform cricket’s physical preparation coaches and tacticians.