Cricket Adaptations
Cricket Adaptations
Cricket is one of Australia's most popular sports, and worldwide is second in popularity only to soccer / football. Blind cricket is a wonderful and competitive sport for athletes with vision impairment. Originally designed in Australia after World War I for returned service men with vision impairment, blind cricket has continued to grow in popularity around the world with strong leagues in Europe, Asia and Australia.
Like all information on this website it is important to understand that these are just possible adaptations and for further information please contact your advisory teacher or Andrew Whisson (PE teacher at the SA School for Vision Impaired).
Potential Rule Changes
Ensuring that the batter is aware and confident of the game play is an important step to involve students and athletes in cricket. The simplest and most effect way to ensure that the batter is ready and prepared to bat is to ask "are you ready?" before starting their bowling approach. Many students with vision impairment will be unable to see the bowler start their run up and this simple questions gives the batter an opportunity to say "yes" or "no" and better prepare themselves for each bowl. Similarly, by enforcing the bowler to call "play" immediately before they bowl the ball it gives the batter an opportunity to track the ball.
The ball must be bowled underarm and must bounce twice, once before half way and once after half way, ensuring that the ball creates enough noise for the batter to track. This also acts to reduce the plane the ball can move towards the batter in, meaning they only need to track the ball for distance and lateral movement (see the photos below).
Image shows how the batter has to consider 3 planes. Distance from batter, lateral movement of the ball and the vertical bounce from the ball.
Image shows how the batter has to consider 2 planes. Distance from batter and lateral movement of the ball but the batter no longer has to consider the vertical bounce from the ball.
Depending of the student's vision it may be important to consider adapting scoring rules for athletes with vision impairment. Mainstream cricket allows athletes to run between the two creases to score a run. While I would advocate for most vision impaired athletes to run independently, safety must be considered. Because of this, athletes without functional vision are often given a runner, another student or athlete to run on their behalf. An alternative to this is the use of a tether (see below), or an audible call from the umpire or teacher to indicate where the other crease is. While this allows the athlete to move independently, it is vital that other students or athletes are aware of this athlete and their vision.
Alongside these running rules, blind cricket also doubles any score from an athlete with no functional vision (B1 athlete). This makes them a vital key to the team and potential game winning player if supported correctly.
Tether tied from a scrap piece of ribbon
Simple tether made out of ribbon allows the sighted athlete to guide the athlete with a vision impairment in the correct direction.
Considerations
It is important that before starting a unit on cricket that a teacher first considers what skills, techniques or tactics they want to observe and what are conducive to the students or athletes in this setting. Is it important for the students to hit the ball out of the air? Is it important to see how a student or athlete can overarm bowl the ball against an opponent?
While blind cricket is an amazing sport it does change fundamental aspects of the game, in particular the bowling action, and the ability to demonstrate a variety of shots as the drive, pull, cut and hook shots are all but removed. This is because the bowl is an underarm bowl that must bounce a minimum of twice, once before half way and once after halfway, therefore most of the time the ball is low or rolling by the time it reaches the batter. For athletes to have the greatest chance of hitting the ball they are better off sweeping as it increases the surface area of the bat (see images below).
Image shows a vertical bat attempting to strike a blind cricket ball.
Image shows a horizontal bat attempting to strike a blind cricket ball.
Communication is the key for any sport played by athletes or students with vision impairment. Ensuring that
Equipment
The equipment for blind cricket is essentially the same as for mainstream cricket with the ball and wickets being the only exception. Depending on the individual students the equipment can differ greatly. For all students, however, the choice of ball is an important first step to ensure an inclusive unit or lesson. Depending on the vision of the individual student it may be important to include an audible ball, or a ball of high contrast to the environment being played in (see PE adaptations pages). Wiffles balls are cheap and easily adapted to ensure they are audible by simply pressing bells into them. The holes and lighter weight also reduce the velocity and possible damage caused by the ball. Younger students or athletes may need the ball size increased and the use of a small chime bell can allow for greater success with the skills being taught, not only for the student with vision impairment but for other students with less prior experience or lower spatial awareness.
It is also possible to play with an official blind cricket ball (see below). The blind cricket ball is the same size as a regular cricket ball , however, is made out of hard plastic and filled with ball bearings in order to create a sound that is easily tracked by the vision impaired athletes..
Finally the wickets used in blind cricket do not have removable bails as the batters are allowed to use the wickets to orientate and position themselves before play begins. These could be as simple as your plastic cricket bash wickets or the common solid metal wickets.
It is possible to buy different coloured wiffle balls and press bells into these balls to create a cheap and effective audible ball for sports such as cricket.
Bells like those shown here are available from craft stores and are a simple but effective way to create an audible ball.
Blind cricket balls are effective and relatively cheep. They are hard and can create dents in softer bats.
More information
For more information contact your advisory teacher or Andrew Whisson (PE Teacher at the SA School for Vision Impaired) for more information.