Cricket is a global game as evidenced by the fact that there are 108 member countries in the International Cricket Council, an organisation responsible for major global cricket championships.1 In cricket, a batter uses a bat and attempts to strike a ball thrown by a bowler. 

The bowler and fielders attempt to ‘dismiss’ the batter in several ways, including catching a ball struck by the batter, hitting the wicket with the bowled ball, or striking the batter’s leg with the bowled ball.

The overall goal of sports vision is to determine which visual skills correlate most directly with performance on the field, and to develop and utilise training methods to improve these visual skills.2 We recently published a review paper on studies of vision in cricket players.3 

The purpose of this paper was to determine whether there are visual skills in cricket players (particularly batters) that exceed those of the normal population, and to summarise the results of clinical training trials in cricket. What follows is a discussion of some of the more significant findings from this review.

Cues for batting

It is reasonable to ask what cues are available for cricket batters to successfully hit the ball. These cues can be divided into advance cues and ball-flight cues. Advance cues are available prior to the time that the bowler releases the ball, and include situational information such as the alignment of the fielders as well as kinematic cues associated with the bowler’s motion. 

Once the bowler releases the ball, there are a number of ball-flight cues available to judge both when and where the ball will arrive at the batter. These latter cues include the rate of change in the angular subtense of the ball as it approaches the batter and the vertical angular velocity of the ball. 

Müller and colleagues have proposed a model of cricket batting in which advance visual cues are used by a batter to determine the position of the lower body (foot movements and weight transfer), and visual ball-flight information is used to ‘fine-tune’ the bat swing such that effective bat-ball contact can be made.4,5 

In this model, earlier ball-flight information helps to guide the early bat position, while information after the ball bounces guides the final tuning of the swing.6 In comparing higher skilled and lower skilled cricket batters, the highly skilled players were found to make more efficient use of both advance and ball-flight cues including post-bounce visual information.


Low-level visual skills (static visual acuity, stereopsis, phoria, dynamic visual acuity) 

The fact that kinematic and ball-flight visual cues are important for cricket batting would suggest that better cricket players may possess better low-level visual skills that are needed to assess these cues. 

For example, it might be expected that visual acuity would be better in cricket players compared to the population at large. Barrett and colleagues compared the results of a number of clinical visual tests for two groups of cricket players (near-elite males and elite females) to published normative values of young adults.7 

Distance static visual acuity and near static visual acuity were similar (or worse) than published normative values. Stereoacuity was better than the normative value for elite cricket players but not for the near-elite players. 

In another study, Brown and Couper reported that in a sample of 100 cricket players across different levels, the static visual acuity was ‘better than average’, while the rate of orthophoria was greater for players at higher levels.8 

Dynamic visual acuity, in which individuals must determine some feature on a moving stimulus, was shown in one study to be better in cricket players compared to non-players.9 However, another study found no difference in dynamic visual acuity between cricketers and non-cricketers.10

Much like the just-cited visual acuity studies, investigations of cricket batting under induced visual blur suggest that perfect vision is not required for cricket batting. Mann and colleagues demonstrated that blur of as much as +2.00D has little impact on batting performance at least for slow to medium speed deliveries.11-13 

This is true regardless of whether batters hit balls bowled by a bowling machine or by live bowlers. While the results of both the visual acuity assessments in cricket players and the results of the batting performance under blur studies suggest that perfect vision is not required to bat a cricket ball, Mann and colleagues point out that these results do not argue against providing the full refractive correction for cricket players.

One low-level visual attribute that may influence performance in cricket is colour vision. One study reported that only 3% of the 100 cricket players examined in the study had a colour vision deficiency.8 Harris and Cole conducted a study of 293 cricket players. They reported that the proportion of players with colour vision deficiencies was similar for bowlers and batsmen, although it might have been expected that fewer batters would have a colour vision defect. 

Harris and Cole concluded that a colour vision deficiency modestly impairs cricket performance. This conclusion was partially based on at least two findings. First, the percentage of players with a severe colour deficiency was less than that in the general population, and second, players with abnormal colour vision preferred to field in positions closer to the bowler than players with no colour vision deficiency.1

How does colour vision affect performance?


High-level visual skills

Reaction time

Reaction time has also been compared between cricket players and non-players. Reaction time can be considered a high-level skill in that it requires the respondent to direct their attention to a stimulus and respond in some way. Simple reaction time is tested with a single stimulus and a single response to that stimulus, while choice reaction time involves multiple potential stimuli. 

Results of studies comparing cricketers and non-cricketers have been inconsistent. While choice reaction time has not been shown to be different between cricket players and non-players,15 simple reaction has sometimes been shown to be better in cricket players.16,17

Eye movements outside of cricket play

Eye movements or oculomotor skills can also be considered high-level skills. Murray and colleagues recently published a study in which correlations between eye movements assessed using a computer and therefore outside the field of play were compared to cricket batting and bowling statistics.18 

All but one of the batting and bowling metrics were modestly or highly correlated with the computer-based oculomotor performance metrics. Murray et al concluded that training eye movements could potentially improve bowling and batting performance.

Eye and head movements and gaze tracking in cricket

Eye and head movements in cricket batting have been examined in a number of studies. Land and McLeod measured vertical eye and head movements as three batters at different levels (one professional batter and two amateurs) batted cricket balls bowled by a pitching machine.19 

Batters made a predictive saccadic eye movement to the location where the ball was expected to bounce. After the predictive saccade, batters tracked the ball with their gaze. The better batters made earlier predictive saccades.

In another study of gaze tracking, Croft and colleagues examined gaze tracking in a group of young (under 19) cricket players.20 There was significant variability in the gaze tracking strategies of these players. 

Some players maintained foveation on the ball throughout the ball’s approach while others moved the eyes off of the ball for a period of time or followed the ball with parafoveal tracking. However, the gaze tracking strategy did not influence batting performance.

Mann and colleagues published a paper on vertical eye and head movements in cricket batting that included two elite international competitors and two high-level club players.21 

Among the more interesting findings in this study was that the elite batters maintained their gaze on or ahead of the ball while the club batters looked at or behind the ball; the elite batters made earlier predictive saccades compared to the club batters; and importantly, the elite batters made two saccades. 

One of these saccades moved the eyes to the location where the ball was expected to bounce and the other placed the eyes at a location where bat-ball contact was expected to be made. 

Lastly, Mann et al reported that the elite players moved their heads with the ball while the club players tracked the ball with their eyes. Mann et al suggested that moving the head with the ball reduced the time needed by the batter to determine where to swing the bat.

In a follow-up to the just-described study of Mann et al, Sarpeshkar and colleagues examined eye and head movements while changing a number of variables related to the bowled ball.22 

While the results of this study were not entirely consistent with those of Mann et al, a very significant result was that simply introducing the possibility that the bowled ball might not follow a straight trajectory increased the likelihood of more ‘novice-like’ behaviour. 

That is, in this latter situation gaze was further behind the ball, predictive saccades occurred later, and gaze location was less frequently in the direction of the ball at bat-ball contact. 

In addition, introducing the possibility of a swinging ball trajectory reduced the quality of bat-ball contact for elite batters, such that the quality of bat-ball contact was similar for the elite and club batters tested in the study.



Vision training in cricket players

A number of clinical trials have been performed involving cricket players. Twelve such studies were examined in the previous review paper.(10, 23-33) The training methods varied substantially between the studies, as did both the level of play of the participants and the outcome measures assessed. 

Training methods ranged from common accommodative and convergence training techniques, to techniques directed at improving conjugate (saccades and pursuits) oculomotor skills, to computer-based methods that included software that may or may not have been originally intended to train vision. 

Other studies used eye-hand coordination training methods that may or may not be highly cricket-specific, or occlusion techniques in which a portion of a bowled ball’s trajectory is hidden from the batter’s view and the batter must for example predict the ball type thrown by the bowler from reduced visual information.

In 11 of 12 studies, the training resulted in improvements in visual skills, judgments related to cricket, cricket batting or catching performance, or in more than one of these things. 

Of these 12 studies, at least eight of them included an outcome measure that required participants to bat, throw, or field cricket balls in the laboratory, or an alternative outcome measure in which batting average before and after training was compared. In seven of these eight studies, improvements in the outcome measures were noted after training.

While these clinical trials certainly look promising, future clinical trials are needed to answer the question of whether and which visual training techniques result in improvements in cricket skills that then translate to better on-field performance. 

These studies should include sufficient numbers of subjects based on pre-trial sample size calculations, and female and male participants, and an age-matched control group.



Summary

Overall, in terms of low-level visual skills, these results suggest that static visual acuity is similar between cricket players and the general population. There is some evidence that stereoacuity may be better in cricket players, and there is mixed evidence as to whether dynamic visual acuity is better in cricket players. 

Colour vision deficiencies may be somewhat detrimental to cricket performance. For high-level skills, there is some evidence that simple reaction time is better in cricket players compared to non-cricket players. However, choice reaction time has not been shown to be better in cricket players. 

Eye and head movements in elite cricket batters are different from club level batters in that gaze is more likely to be on or ahead of the ball, predictive saccades are more likely to occur earlier, and gaze is more likely to be directed at the location of bat-ball contact. 

These differences in eye and head movements and gaze tracking strategies may suggest that training could be employed in which lower-level batters are taught to emulate the eye and head movement behaviours of elite batters. 

Lastly, clinical trials performed thus far have largely suggested that vision training can result in improvements in cricket performance. More clinical trials will be needed to determine which training methods are most effective in bringing about on-field improvements in cricket.

  • Jennifer Fogt is an assistant professor at the Ohio State University College of Optometry. Her clinical areas of interest are in contact lenses and paediatrics. She is an executive committee member of the Scleral Lenses in Current Ophthalmic Practice Evaluation (Scope) group. She conducts research in myopia control, contact lenses, dry eye, and human performance.
  • Nick Fogt is a professor at the Ohio State University College of Optometry. He currently teaches the posterior segment and systemic disease courses at the College and a graduate course in eye movements. His research is in binocular vision, head and eye movements, and sports vision


Disclosures

The authors have no relevant disclosures or conflicts of interest with the content of this article.

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