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New ECB Guidelines for Fast Bowlers

(April 23, 2010)

Change to ECB Fast Bowling Directives - Good News for most of our young lads & lasses

New Fast Bowling Directives are designed to raise awareness of the need to nurture and protect our young fast bowlers through their formative years, and have been welcomed by a significant number of coaches and managers. Statistics clearly show that fast bowlers regularly win International matches, and if England is to achieve the vision of becoming the most successful and respected cricket nation, every effort must be taken to produce bowlers to reach the goal.

The ECB fast bowling directives have changed following a two-year consultation process. The outcome is that bowlers up to Under-15 level (e.g. Miller twins) are now able to bowl longer spells and more overs in a day. Under the new directives, which come into effect at the start of the 2010 season:

fast bowlers below and at Under-16 (David B-D plus J & C Reeves) and Under-17 level (e.g. Tolson and Hodgson Jnr) are now permitted to bowl an extra over per spell,
those quicks in the Under 18 (M Goring) and Under 19 (??) category have had the total number of overs they can deliver per day reduced from 21 to 18.

These fast bowling directives are designed to raise awareness of the need to nurture and protect young fast bowlers through their formative years. Research has shown that fast bowlers are by far the most likely players to be missing playing and training time due to injury.

Up to Under 13s Previous Overs in spell - 4. Previous overs in day - 8. New guideline - 5 in spell and 10 in the day

U14, U15. Previously 5 & 10 and now 6 & 12
U16, U17. Previously 6 & 18 and now 7 and 18
U18, U19. Previously 7 & 21 and now 7 and 18

For these purposes a fast bowler should be defined as a bowler to whom a wicket keeper in the same age group would in normal circumstances stand back to take the ball

Kevin Shine, ECB lead fast bowling coach, said: �The elite fast bowling group has been researching injury prevention, performance enhancement and workloads for the past four years. �The new recommendations mean youngsters under the age of 15 can now bowl an additional over in a spell and two overs more in a day. These figures are over and above the original directives. �It is clear that our young bowlers need to bowl more so that they can develop match winning abilities and habits and I look forward to the revised directives giving individual fast bowlers and teams more of a chance to play match winning cricket.� The results included input from clubs, county boards, ECB elite performance group, which includes, ESCA, ECB performance, ECB development, England elite player development, ECB operations, and HMC schools.

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