Effect of Selected Asanas on the Flexibility of Ranji level Wicket Keepers in Cricket

The purpose of the present study was to study the effect of selected asanas on the flexibility of wicket keepers in Cricket. A total No. of 30 wicket keepers, ages ranging between 21 to 30 years were randomly selected to act as subject for the study. Sit and Reach test was conducted to measure the flexibility. The asanas were considered as independent variables: Sarvangasana, Matyaasana, Pawanmuktasana, Bhujangasana, Shalbhasana, Dhanuerasana,, Ardhmatsendrasana, Pashchimatanasana, Vajrasana, Ustmasana, Katichakrasana, Padmasana, and Savasana, and on the other hand Flexibility was considered as the dependent variable. Sit and Reach box was used to measure the flexibility of lower hamstring and lower back muscle. The training was designed for nine weeks on alternate days and the duration of one day program had 45 minutes. The data was collected before the training program, after two weeks, four weeks, on the sixth week, and finally on the eighth week of training program. The data was collected and the same was analyzed by computing the descriptive statistics, whereas to assess the significant effect of training program on flexibility repeated measure ANOVA was computed, the level of significance was set at 0.05 level. The results reveals that there was a significant difference wicket keepers in pre and post test as the mean and standard deviation value of the pre test was 32.43 and 7.31 respectively, whereas the mean and standard deviation values of the post test1, post test2, post test3 and post4 were found to be 34.30 and 7.51, 35.60 and 6.95, 36.50 and 6.84 and 38.53 and 7.50 respectively. The values of Repeated Measure One Way ANOVA shows that the F value of assumed Sphericity was found to be 27.62 against the tabulated value of 2.44 which was significant at 0.05 level. The finding of the present study has strongly indicated that asana training has improved the flexibility of the wicket keepers in cricket. Hence the hypothesis previously said that asana training will improve flexibility of Cricket players is accepted.