St Mary's Academic's Research finds Cricket Players are more Successful when Batting Backward

PhD student in the School of Sport, Health and Applied Science at St Mary’s University, Twickenham Oliver Runswick collaborated with Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on research that has found cricket players are more successful when batting the wrong way. According to the new research, published in journal Sports Medicine, batsmen who adopt a reversed stance (right-handed people who bat left-handed, and left-handers who bat right-handed) are far more likely to reach the first-class and international level, with professional batsmen being seven times more likely to adopt a reversed stance than the rest of the population. The study looked at the results of research on professional and inexperienced cricket batsmen. The research was conducted by David Mann at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam in the Netherlands, in collaboration with Oliver Runswick and Peter Allen, Anglia Ruskin University. The results also suggest that a reversed stance leads to greater success and questions the way that similar sports (e.g. golf and baseball) are taught and performed. Speaking on the research Oliver said, “This has been an intriguing and enjoyable project to be involved in. The results could change the way we think about coaching batting in cricket and have real potential to extended into other sports that involve two-handed ball striking.”