In 1996 Asics released the first purpose - built Australian Rules Football boot, the Gel Lethal. This boot was an instant success, with players recognizing it offered superior performance, comfort and protection from injury. The Gel Lethal remains the industry standard. Taking the lessons learnt from the football boot project, Asics has turned its attention to that other great Australian sporting pastime - cricket.

Applying the same uncompromising principles of performance, comfort and injury prevention to cricket boot design represents a significant challenge. Like football boots, cricket boot design has remained unchanged for many years. The traditional heavy leather soled shoe is still worn throughout Australia. This is perhaps the only remaining category of leather soled shoes in any sport, since we now understand that weight reduction, cushioning and stability are the keys to athletic shoe performance. With superior material technology, research and development, modern design parameters can now be applied to cricket.

Like the football shoe, Asics' new cricket shoe evolved from running shoe technology. But because no two sports have the same requirements, that's where the similarity stopped. And because there was so little biomechanical research on cricket, it was necessary to go back to the game and the players for advice.

Simon Bartold, one of Australia's leading sports podiatrists and a member of Sports Medicine Australia, studied over 100 hours of video to analyse the biomechanics of cricket fast bowlers. He also spent many hours talking with and testing shoe prototypes with fast bowlers at the Australian Institute of Sport Cricket Academy.

As a result of this research, the new features were concepted, tested, and finally, applied to the new and revolutionary asics cricket shoe range. Because cricket shoe design was so antiquated, some of the changes are just common sense things that we all come to expect in our everyday running shoe or cross trainer. That included things like reducing the overall weight, making sure the shoe flexes at the ball of your foot and not at the heel, making sure there is greater stability to avoid abnormal pronation or supination, and adding the asics Gel system to provide cushioning. None of these are new concepts in shoe design, but the asics cricket shoe is unique because it is the first cricket shoe that incorporates these basic principles.

Some of the revolutionary features of the shoes include: 

Rounded contours of the Sole
"Our research demonstrated that bowlers of all actions, tend to strike the ground with the foot at an angle. Because traditional cricket boots have very little shoe-sole contouring, this means the athlete lands on a virtual knife edge, and is literally on the edge of disaster. We looked at other sports with similar loads and actions, most notably Javelin throwing, and concluded that rounded contours at the point of contact may help to protect the athlete and improve performance" explained Bartold.

New spike patterns
" We spent many hours discussing this issue with players, and trialled many different patterns of spike placement." 

Use of synthetic Materials
Man-made leathers and other synthetic materials are so sophisticated these days, they offer advantages over natural materials in every regard. One of the most important advantages however is the fact that they offer huge reductions in the weight of the shoe. At a biomechanical level this is extremely important, since weight reduction relates directly to reduced force transmission through the limb. Synthetic materials also breathe better and offer improved durability. These are all features the player can immediately appreciate - a great leap forward in player comfort and protection.

Reinforced toe box
Let's face it, who likes having a cricket ball crushing down on their toes?

New Lacing System
"Everybody, not just sports people, tend to disregard the importance of lacing their shoes. But there are a lot of tendons across the top of the foot that are easily aggravated by poor or too tight lacing. Asics has developed an elliptical lacing system for the cricket shoe. This new system distributes the load across the top of the foot more evenly, and this helps to protect the delicate structures on the top of the foot and reduce the likelihood of injury to this area."

Asics cricket - revolution by design