The dust has settled on the 2011 Cricket World Cup, leaving us with the indelible images of “The Little Master”, Sachin Tendulkar, and India’s coach, Gary Kirsten, being cheered by the Mumbai crowds after India’s thrilling win. CPUT’s own sports researcher, Dr Sharhidd Taliep, was lucky enough to get a front row seat to all the behind-the-scenes action when he presented two papers at the 4th World Congress of Science and Medicine in Cricket in Chandigarh, India recently.

Hosted every four years immediately after the semi-finals of the tournament, the conference focuses on the sports medicine industry and related research topics, and plays host to experts from across the subcontinent and the globe.

Involving sport scientists, sports medicine specialists, orthopaedicians, physiotherapists, physiologists, academics, administrators and sports coaches from the major cricket-playing nations, the Congress aims to provide a knowledge-sharing platform to address key areas in the prevention and management of injuries in cricket and the enhancement of performance.

Speaking to 2nd year Sport and Physical Recreation Studies lecturer Dr Taliep, he mused at just how fortunate he was to attend the prestigious event. “I was at the Congress during the last two ICC World Cup games in 2003 and 2007, where I presented papers on bowling accuracy and batting techniques. This time around I presented two papers; one on the effects of playing Sudoku on batsmen’s mental preparation and another one on the dwindling figures of South Africa’s black (African) batsmen”.

In the first paper, Dr Taliep found that the game of Sudoku had a profound effect on the mental preparedness of the players, particularly those that played the game for at least 15 minutes before batting. He also discovered that the game increased their swing focus and gave them prolonged concentration on their batting technique.

In his second paper, he looked at the ratio of black (African) batsmen, from the junior teams all the way through to professional players, and concluded that their decline in numbers is an area of major concern that needs further investigation.

“It’s a growing problem, but with further research, I hope to uncover the reasons behind the decline, be they socio-economic or lack of opportunities. Ideally, I’d love to then present my findings to some of the decision makers in the cricketing fraternity”.

Dr Taliep is currently being kept busy by a host of research projects, including the use of Rooibos as an antioxidant to increase resistance to fatigue during exercise and the effects of fasting (during Ramadaan) on muscle strength and cardiovascular performance in rugby players.

He is also collaborating with Cricket South Africa and UCT on a number of different projects. “We have already published one article with another in review and we intend publishing three further articles on data collected on South African High-Performance cricket players”.

By: Thando J Moiloa

Written by CPUT News
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Good batting performance lies in the brain.

This is the results of a study by Cape Town academics, which revealed that cricket batsmen have to clear their minds and focus on important cues from the bowler prior to the cricket ball being released, in order to correctly play the most appropriate stroke.

This study provides the first scientific evidence relating to skilled batting performance with mental preparation measured by brain activity.

The study was conducted by Dr Sharhidd Taliep of the CPUT’s Sport Management Department in collaboration with Dr Lester John of the University of Cape Town’s Medical Imaging Research Unit.

This group of researchers is the first in the world to publish brain-related perceptual research in cricketers.

Taliep, who is the study’s chief investigator, says an electro-encephalographic was used in the study to measure brain activity of skilled and less-skilled cricket batsmen.

He found that the brain is able to shut down irrelevant internal chatter in order to obtain an optimal mental state for batting performance. This irrelevant internal chatter competes for resources of the brain and skilled batsmen are better able to shut it out, allowing more energy to be focused on important processes.

Taliep says this study is the first to show this in reactive sports like cricket and the results could be applied to other reactive sports like baseball, tennis and squash, where it could be used to train and test athletes.

The article will be published in the international journal, Perception, at the end of April under the headline: “Sport Expertise: The role of precise timing of verbal-analytical engagement and the ability to detect visual cues”.

Written by Kwanele Butana
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