Common in cricket, but mostly a niggle players play throughEmerging evidence
Cricket asks the shoulder for two different actions. In bowling the arm swings over the top almost straight, and a lab study recorded "A large peak shoulder distraction force" (a pull on the joint) early in the follow-through, within the range reported for baseball and softball pitchers; in fielding, a hard flat throw takes the arm back and whips it forward, as in other throwing sports. A study of 106 elite South African cricketers concluded that cricketers' shoulders adapt differently from the classic thrower's shoulder of baseball, and 17% had a shoulder injury over a season.
Cricket is a safe game for most players: over 10 seasons of elite Australian men's cricket, "Cricket is a much safer sport to play at the elite level for batsmen, fieldsmen, wicketkeepers, and spin bowlers than the football codes", while fast bowlers missed about 16% of potential playing time, and in junior club cricket "injury rates in junior cricket players are low, but increase with age level of play". How common shoulder pain is depends on how it is counted. Counting time lost, the shoulder is a small share: in elite Australian men over 10 seasons, shoulder instability, tendon and other shoulder injuries together were about 3.7 of 64 match time-loss injuries per 100 players a season, about 6% (our sum of the three shoulder rows in the study's table), and about 1% of players were unavailable with one at any time. In the men's and women's competitions of The Hundred, about 8% and 12% of injuries were to the shoulder, nearly all without missed play.
Counting any pain, it is large: in English county cricket, "Twenty-three per cent of the participants described shoulder injury during the 2005 season", "Eighteen per cent of all study participants felt pain on throwing at some stage", and "Professional cricketers generally play on with shoulder injuries without missing matches, though their performance, especially during fielding, is often compromised". Playing on has a cost: in 32 provincial and club cricketers, shoulder pain that hadn't stopped play at the start of a season went with a shoulder injury that did later (9 of the 32 were injured), in a small study.
Sources 32, 23, 37, 38, 3, 17, 1, 15
Women, spinners and club cricketersEmerging evidence
In women's cricket, "The most prevalent body regions injured were the shoulder and knee, and most were sustained by fast bowlers"; in elite women's T20, "The greatest incidence occurred in the shoulder", and "throwing related shoulder injury had the highest incidence (2.3 injuries per 100 match days)". Over 8 seasons of elite Australian women, 409 shoulder injuries were recorded (12.9 per 100 players a season): "Gradual onset injuries were most commonly experienced by pace bowlers (51%)", "Sudden onset injuries were most commonly sustained whilst fielding (69%)" and "Four in five injuries were non-time-loss".
In 42 young spinners and 70 young fast bowlers at English county centres, injuries were rare per ball, but "In spin bowlers, the site incidence was shoulder 0.055 and low back 0.011" per 1,000 balls, and the authors suggest "shoulder injuries in wrist spinners merit further study". In community cricket in New Zealand, "Lumbosacral, shoulder and knee injuries were common amongst all playing positions", and in a review of community cricket, the shoulder was 32% of the upper limb insurance claims in New Zealand. In 39 club fast bowlers in a South African thesis (not peer reviewed), 9 had shoulder pain over a season; 12 of 26 elite Australian female fast bowlers had a history of shoulder pain; and 15% of elite teenage cricketers in Victoria reported shoulder problems in a year, mostly mild.
Sources 18, 4, 2, 5, 19, 39, 40, 41, 42
Throwing from the field loads the shoulder as much as bowlingEmerging evidence
Most sudden shoulder injuries in elite Australian women happened fielding, and throwing-related shoulder injury was the commonest single injury in elite women's T20. In 28 elite Australian cricketers, "Players were at a significantly increased risk of injury if they completed more than 75 throws/week" (a relative risk of 1.73), counting arm injuries, not the shoulder alone. A 40-throw fielding session cut inward turning of the shoulder by 3.9 degrees straight afterwards, a short-lived change.
Sources 2, 4, 6, 25
The cricketer's shoulder changes with years of throwingMixed evidence
In elite cricketers, those who regularly bowl or throw overarm had 7.9 degrees less inward turning and 8.6 degrees more outward turning in the bowling shoulder than the other, and the link with pain needed more study. Across 17 studies of 2,195 overhead athletes, "The pooled results of this systematic review and meta-analysis did not reach statistical significance for any shoulder motion measurement and its correlation to shoulder or elbow injury". In elite female fast bowlers, "There were no bilateral differences in average torques or average torque ratios, nor were there any differences in rotation range of motion, torques or torque ratios in the bowling shoulder between bowlers with and without a history of shoulder pain". So a difference between your shoulders is usually an adaptation, not a diagnosis.
Sources 22, 23, 24, 41
Loose shoulders, the labrum and the rare causesEmerging evidence
Most shoulder pain from bowling is the rotator cuff and the muscles that slow the arm after release working harder or longer than they are used to. A loose shoulder or a torn rim of cartilage around the socket (the labrum) is less common: a review of fast bowlers after a labral repair notes that instability "often follows injuries sustained during fielding and training". A stress fracture of the collarbone in a fast bowler is a single case report.
Even in professionals, operations are uncommon: in professional Australian cricketers from 2015 to 2024, shoulder stabilisation for instability was the third commonest operation, at about 1 per 110 player years (0.91 per 100), keyhole surgery for the labrum or a cuff tear was rarer (0.23 per 100), and "There were no open shoulder reconstructions attempted on the bowling arm of any fast bowlers."
Sources 35, 36, 16
When a scan helpsEmerging evidence
Most shoulder pain from bowling needs no scan: the examination of where it hurts, what movement brings it on and how strong the shoulder is decides, and range differences between the shoulders are common in cricketers without pain. An X-ray is needed after a fall or a dive with a shoulder that may be broken or out of place, and for a young thrower with pain at the top of the arm. A magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, sometimes with dye in the joint, matters when instability or a labral tear is suspected and surgery is being considered; our throwing guide explains why scans of throwers' shoulders find changes in many that don't hurt.
Sources 22, 24
How it usually goesEmerging evidence
Most shoulder niggles settle within days to weeks, and most cricketers play on. The NHS says you usually need to look after shoulder pain yourself for 2 weeks before it starts to ease, and to get medical help if it doesn't. In elite Australian women, modified throwing, diving and bowling lasted from two weeks to six months, and "Players typically returned to full unrestricted match play between 1 and 8.5 months, longer for recurrent injuries".
After a dislocation, the NHS says recovery usually takes 6 to 12 weeks, and "It may take up to 16 weeks to fully return to playing some sports". After shoulder stabilisation across sports, 79% returned fully to sport, and the authors say throwing sports may do less well; after a repair of a SLAP tear, "only 63% of overhead athletes returned to their previous level of play", and a later review of competitive overhead athletes also found a moderate return. In professional Australian cricketers, keyhole shoulder operations, which included SLAP repairs, "dropped substantially" over a decade. No one can promise a date.
Sources 1, 2, 12, 43, 29, 30, 31, 16
When it isn't bowling: the causes the warning signs cover
Some shoulder and arm pain has causes bowling didn't create, and the warning signs follow the pages behind them. Arm or shoulder pain with chest pain can be the heart, as the NHS heart attack and angina pages say; someone who faints while exercising needs a 999 call, as the NHS fainting page explains; a hot, swollen joint can be an infection, which the NHS septic arthritis page says needs urgent treatment; and the NHS stroke page gives the signs of a stroke. Neck pain with pins and needles down the arm can be a nerve from the neck, as the NHS neck pain page describes. Sudden weakness lifting the arm after an injury can be a torn rotator cuff, which UK care pathways say needs urgent referral, and they add that 40% of people over 40 who dislocate a shoulder have a cuff tear; a primary care review covers the other causes of shoulder pain. For cuff pain that isn't easing, the UK pathway runs about 6 weeks of physiotherapy, and a further 6 if it is helping, before referral; in a trial, 24% who did specific exercises chose surgery within a year against 63% who did general exercises, and in a cohort of 452 people with cuff tears, few chose surgery after 3 months. A swollen, throbbing arm can be a blood clot, which the NHS deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and thoracic outlet syndrome pages describe, and a specialist review of nerve-type thoracic outlet syndrome says weakness or wasting of the arm muscles calls for prompt surgery, "within a few weeks at most".
In throwers, deep pain at the back of the shoulder with lost speed or a longer warm-up can be the cuff pinched inside the joint (internal impingement), as a review and the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) describe; painless wasting of the muscle over the back of the shoulder blade is usually a squeezed nerve in overhead athletes, as studies of volleyball players found; and the soreness rules for throwing come from published interval throwing programmes, which a 2025 review of nine found varied widely in length, intensity and progression.
Sources 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73
