Counties urged by ECB to protect bowlers in truncated cricket season

Bowlers in this year’s truncated county season look set to have their overs capped and the new ball delayed under guidelines designed to counter the threat of injury and, in particular, stress fractures to the lower back.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced the England and Wales Cricket Board to shelve the County Championship this summer and from 1 August the 18 first-class counties will instead contest a shortened red-ball competition named the Bob Willis Trophy before a similarly reduced T20 Blast.

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Counties will play five Bob Willis Trophy matches each within three regional groups of six, culminating in a possible Lord’s final for the two teams with the most points. It is expected to have first-class status too after a proposal to make it 12-a-side – beyond permitted concussion and Covid-19 replacements – was dismissed.

Fears around the fitness of seamers, following the extended lay-off caused by the UK’s lockdown, mean that new playing conditions will be introduced, however, along with recommended workloads for seamers.

Under ECB advice seen by the Guardian, and now awaiting sign-off from the governing body’s cricket committee, players under 20 years of age should not send down more 35 overs of “match intensity” bowling per week. This rises to 38 overs for under-22s and 42 for under-25s. Though there is some flexibility, amid an acceptance that match situations may see these limits exceeded, any player doing so would be then ruled out of the following match.

Seamers above the age of 25 must also undergo a three-day “bone recovery period” – also known as rest – should they exceed 42 overs in a match. In a move designed to encourage the use of spinners, the new ball will not become available until 90 overs, as opposed to 80 overs now, while the length of a day’s play will also come down from 96 overs to 90.

First innings will be also capped at 120 overs each, while the follow-on mark moves from 150 runs to 200 runs to reduce its deployment. The proposed guidelines flag up the risk of “lumbar stress injury” given bowlers will be returning to action short of the minimum eight-week preparation period recommended by the International Cricket Council in May.

To this end the “mitigation measures” drawn up the ECB’s medical team also advise that the loan system be used in a “proactive” and “collaborative” way by counties to ensure counties have sufficient bowling resources for their fixtures.

An ECB spokesperson has confirmed that the governing body is looking to ensure the matches retain first-class status, with the three regional groups and the fixture list due to be published in the next week and designed to make as many games as possible commutable for the players.