Jeffrey Low *, Paul R. Ford ** and A. Mark Williams ***
(*) Sultan Idris Education University, Faculty of Sport Science and Coaching, Tanjung Malim, Perak, Malaysia
(**) Centre for Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine, University of Brighton, United Kingdom
(***) Centre for Sports Medicine and Human Performance, Brunel University, London, United Kingdom
Citation
Low, J., R. Ford, P., Mark Williams, A. (2015). The effects of birth date and place on the development of expertise in professional cricket batters. International Journal of Sport Psychology, 46(6), 676-688. doi:10.7352/IJSP.2015.46.676
Abstract
Many factors influence the development of expert athletes. We examine the effect of birth date and place on the development of expertise in 740 male professional cricketers in the United Kingdom. The career batting averages of players were used to create samples of high- and low-performing batters. The high-performing group was 1.6 times more likely to be born in the first than in the fourth quartile, whereas there was no significant difference in the distribution of births across the four quartiles for the low-performing group. The odds of the high-performing group originating from the most populated region (i.e., > 5 million) and small- to medium-sized cities (i.e., 30,000 and 100,000) approached significance, but not for the low-performing group. Birth date and birthplace appear to influence an individual’s opportunity to engage in and achieve expert status in sport
Keywords: Expert performance, Relative Age Effect, Talent development, Skill acquisition