Effect of Six Week Practicing With Three Methods of Catching on Agility of Cricketers

Cricket is a most popular game in the world at present. Cricket is gaining in popularity , and growing numbers of peoples are turning to a game which seemed in decline a decade ago, and like most sports skills in it, can be increased through careful study and watching top players in action. Cricket is probably the most complex and subtle team game among all the games. There are mainly three department I n cricket namely , (a) batting.(b) bowling and (c) fielding, and all are of equal significance and importance . as a result of tremendous amount of speed and variation the fielders are expected to be more agile especially the close-in-fielders. The ball which comes with tremendous speed adds more velocity when it is hit with bat. In order to catch such high velocity ball the close-in-fielders needs strong reflexes and anticipation and thus there is need for special type of coaching and training to meet the great demands. “Catches win matches” is a proverb which is often quoted by older hands equally often rejected by younger. The youngsters prefer either to bat or to bowl but neglect the fielding part of the game. The secret of success in fielding is the concentration and relaxation. Fielding is the acid test of cricket. It is observed in many of the coaching camps at various levels that the coaches put the players to catching in three methods, like,(1) throwing with hand, (2) hitting with bat, (3) throwing with cradle. But here three methods is used are (1) practicing with swiss ball,(2) practicing with crazy ball and(3) practicing with throwing on cement surface. Agility has been defined by Mathew “as the ability to change direction accurately and quickly moving rapidly” Agility has been defined by jhonson and nelson “as the physical education which enables an individual to rapidly change body position and direction in a precise manner.

2- It will be helpful to find out the importance catching methods on agility. 3- It may also add knowledge to training and coaching in cricket. 4- This study may provide guidance to coaches to prepare a well balanced team which fulfills

Selection of the subjects For the purpose of the study 40 subjects of cricket match practice group were selected on the basis of random sampling technique for the present study, and the age level of the players was 18 to 24 years. Criterion measures To establish the effect of different types of catching on agility of cricketers following test is used:

• AAHPERD shuttle run test

 To find out differences in pretest and posttest means of each group and a control group a ‘t’ test was employed.  To find out variation among the groups , one way ANOVA was employed.

For testing the difference between the means of three groups practiced with three different catching means the level of significance was set at 0.05 level of significance.

The data collected was statistically analyzed by employing ‘t’ test and results of various groups are presented in tables 1 and 2.

* significant at 0.05 level of significance the table value of ‘t’ with 9df was 2.26. groups agility with practicing with swiss ball as obtained ‘t’ value(3.55) was greater than the ‘t’ value(2.26) with 9df. Further in case of practicing on cement surface in the agility showed that there was no significant difference in initial means (15.2) and final means (14.22) of subjects as obtained ‘t’ value(3.02) was greater than the ‘t’ value(2.26) with 9df. Further in case of practicing with crazy ball in the agility showed that there was no significant difference in initial means (15.81) and final means (14.60) of subjects as obtained ‘t’ value(3.58) was greater than the ‘t’ value(2.26) with 9df. Control group did not show any improvement as the obtained ‘t’ value (1.67) was less than the table ‘t’ value (2.26) with 9df at 0.05 level.

It is evident from table 2 that there was a insignificant on swiss ball, crazy ball, cement surface and control group on agility of subjects after 6 weeks of training, the calculated f ratio 6.95 was greater than the table f value 2.86 at 0.05 levels with(3,36)df. The post hoc test was applied to find out various ions among the groups. When the data was compared with swiss ball and cement surface the mean difference was. 23, swiss ball and crazy ball .18, swiss ball and control group 1.12 cement surfaces and crazy ball .41, cement surface and control group 1.36, crazy ball and control group .94. the critical difference value was .646 which was less than swiss

When the subjects were changed with swiss ball, cement surface , crazy ball, the agility of the subjects improved significantly as obtained ‘t’ value(3.55,3.02,3.58) was significant for swiss ball, cement surface and crazy ball respectively as the obtained ‘t’ value were greater than table ‘t’ value of 2.26 with 9df. The control group did not show any significant. The reason could be that the variation brought by these three types of catching practice whereas control group did not show any significant improvement. the data was further subjected to one way analysis of variance to find out variability among, swiss ball, cement surface , crazy balland control group on agility after six weeks training program as the obtained value 6.95 was greater than the table f value of 2.86 with (3,36)df at 0.05 level . the data was further subjected to post hoc test where the mean difference with swiss ball ad cement surface was. 23. swiss ball and crazy ball .18, swiss ball and control group 1.12 cement surface and crazy ball .41, cement surface and control group 1.36, crazy ball and control group .94.it was observed that the comparison among the three practice group did not show any significant difference but when they were compared with control group a significant mean difference was observed as the critical difference .646 was less than the mean difference. The reason could be attributed to fact that yhe control group was inactive throughout the training tenure of six weeks. On the basis of the analysis of data and the results obtained, the following conclusions may be drawn: There was significant difference in agility of subjects as result of practicing with swiss ball, cement surface, crazy ball and control group.

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