Sydney, Nov. 18 (ANI): Australian cricketer Josh Hazlewood has said that `perils of pace' is the primary reason behind more and more young fast bowlers facing injuries and back stress fractures.

The NSW paceman made his debut for the state at 17 and was earmarked as a future international. But four years down the track, a series of injuries, including stress fractures, have restricted him to just 15 first-class appearances.

"My memory of it is you don''t feel it while you''re walking around or doing day-to-day things - it hits you when you bowl, the more you bowl the worse it gets. I think rest is the only way to fix it," the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Hazlewood, as saying.

"I personally believe it correlates to big spikes in the workload - as long as you maintain that, whether it''s a high-level intensity and you keep those number of balls up rather than fluctuate. I think [a consistent level] is the key," he added.

According to the paper, former Test paceman Geoff Lawson also acknowledged the many theories behind the rise of the stress fractures, including the fast bowler''s delivery and follow-through being at the heart of the problem.

"The research is not conclusive but they try to draw conclusions from it. It''s a disturbing trend. People through the 1980s were trying to work out what was causing this injury and they worked out more twisting placed extra stress on your lower back," he said.

"The trend seems to be bowlers get injured when they''re young, and after that they train harder and get better and do more stomach work and don''t get injured. It seems you have to be injured between 15 and 21 and you''re right - never 100 per cent but you''re right," he added. (ANI)