Data from elite professional sports players provide a valuable source of information on human performance and ageing. Functional declines in performance have been investigated across a wide range of sporting disciplines that vary in their need for physical strength, endurance, cognitive ability and motor skills, but rarely have researchers considered other sources of heterogeneity that can exist among individuals. Using information on all male bowlers to have played Test match cricket since the early 1970s, I separated age-dependent variation in bowling performance at the population-level into within-individual and between- individual (cohort) changes. I found no evidence for senescence in bowling performance as measured via economy rate or wicket-taking ability, irrespective of the style of the bowler (fast or slow). Instead, analyses detected strong between-individual contributions to bowling performance as higher quality bowlers were able to compete at the elite level for longer, and were therefore over-represented in older age classes. Bowlers also experienced a deterioration in the last year of their Test careers. These results highlight that the very best Test match bowlers have been able to maintain and often improve their skill level well into their thirties, but how they accomplish this alongside the physical demands of Test cricket remains unresolved. Further multivariate models also identified a negative relationship among slow bowlers between their economy rate and their wicket-taking ability, suggesting that in general, the most economical slow bowlers in the modern era of Test match cricket have also taken wickets at the fastest rate. The same is not true for fast bowlers, which is perhaps partly because bowling at high speed compromises accuracy and thus increases scoring opportunities for batsman.

中文翻译：

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翻滚还是翻滚？与年龄相关的保龄球在保龄球比赛中的表现变化

来自精英职业体育选手的数据提供了有关人类表现和年龄的有价值的信息来源。在各种体育学科中对功能的下降进行了调查，这些学科对身体力量，耐力，认知能力和运动技能的需求各不相同，但研究人员很少考虑个体之间可能存在的其他异质性来源。自1970年代初以来，我利用所有男性保龄球手的信息参加了测试比赛的板球比赛，我将年龄范围内保龄球表现的年龄依赖性变化在人群水平上分为个人内部和个人（群体）变化。我发现没有证据表明通过保龄球的风格（快速或慢速）可以通过经济率或检举能力来衡量保龄球性能的下降。代替，分析发现，个人之间对保龄球性能的贡献很大，因为高质量的保龄球运动员能够在精英级别竞争更长的时间，因此在老年年龄组中的比例过高。保龄球选手在职业生涯的最后一年也经历了恶化。这些结果表明，最好的测试比赛投球手能够保持并经常提高他们的技术水平，直到三十多岁，但是他们如何与测试板球的身体需求相结合仍未解决。进一步的多变量模型还确定了慢速保龄球的经济率和检票口能力之间的负相关关系，这表明，总体而言，现代测试赛板球时代最经济的慢速保龄球也以最快的速度检票。