When a player is hit on the hand by a cricket ball, the first reaction is to shake it off. Does this assist?

Lucknow Super Giants’ Rishabh Pant performs a shot throughout the IPL 2025 cricket match between Royal Challengers Bengaluru and Lucknow Super Giants, Lucknow, May 27, 2025.
| Photo Credit: PTI

Quickly shaking the hand might briefly really feel higher. But relying on how onerous the ball has struck the hand, instinctively shaking it might or might not assist.

A well-known 1965 paper stated this was as a result of the jolt sends nerve alerts to the spinal twine sooner than the sharp-pain alerts attain it, briefly closing the ‘gate’ on the latter. But this gate-control idea has come to be disputed for varied causes. This stated, analysis has discovered the jolting motion might assist the individual distract themselves from the ache and consider they’re doing one thing about it. 

Cricket balls are onerous objects and on the discipline they are often travelling quick sufficient to trigger extreme accidents. Vigorous shaking is thus not suggested as a result of it may exacerbate bruising, small fractures in the finger bones, ligament tears or dislodge mushy tissue that has already been broken.

It could also be higher to cease shaking the hand and begin first help. In the occasion of a contusion, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons particularly states, “Do not massage the injured area.”

Instead it recommends the RICE protocol: Rest (“protect the injured area from further harm”), Ice (“use cold packs for 20 minutes at a time”), Compress (“lightly wrap the injured area in a soft bandage”), and Elevate (“raise the injured area to a level above the heart”).