I remember an incident from the year 1992 when India was playing a test match in Durban against South Africa. Jonty Rhodes, one of the best fielders in the cricketing world and then debutant, managed an attempt to runout Sachin Tendulkar, an ultimate cricketing God for Indian fans. Third Umpires came into the picture, who used the television replays for the very first time in cricket history, to analyse the situation. The green light flashed on the television screen, and Sachin Tendulkar declared out, had to return to the dressing room.
Dean Evan, a technology writer, has correctly described the Big Data as Cricket’s 13th man. Cricket has always been a number game, with the batting team putting a figure on the board and bowling team making all efforts to take all ten wickets or restrict the opposition to place the game in their stride. However, just the video analysis of a game can not give the data for the teams to analyse and improve the game. It has become of utmost importance to track the batsman and bowler’s activities on the field to greater depths (analysis of each shot, run, bowl and field) so that broadcasters get an opportunity to combine sensor data and real-time analytics to enhance their coverage and teams to plan their game accordingly. It also gives a unique experience by delivering real-time and impressive stats to the viewers. In accordance with this, International Cricket Council (ICC) has already been using SAP HANA Cloud Platform for analysing the scorecard statistics, player profiles and performance and relevant details.
With this data analytics, all minute details like pitch readings, seam movements can be made available to the team. Technology has evolved, and this can be seen in the Decision Review System (DRS), which plays a crucial role in making decisions based on variations in magnitude – whether the ball has touched the bat or not. Hawk-Eye technology (tracks ball trajectory, bowling speed, pitch and bounce), infrared HotSpot imaging, Snick-O-Meter microphones hidden in stumps are a couple of ways to capture the data and make it available for the team and cricketing fraternity.
The 2017 ICC Champions trophy was one of the most high-tech cricket tournaments ever organized which showcased the usage of all the technologies mentioned above. Even the bat used by the players had Intel-powered Specular bat sensor to track the features of batter’s swing and movement. As explained by Narayan Sundararajan, Principal Engineer & Director at the Intel New Technology Group. “For example, say a four or six was hit, we could provide ‘bat speed’ data so that the commentators had a clear and quantitative idea on how fast the batsmen’s hands were going. By combining multiple metrics, like bat speed and swing, we could calculate Shot Timing Efficiency numbers for each batsman and compare them using data analytics in real-time.”
This is amusing that today even before a play starts, we have the insights into the pitch readings. Drones equipped with HD and infrared cameras are used for aerial pitch inspections, which gives details about grass coverage on the pitch, grass health and pitch topography (ICC, 2017c). Cricket, being already a number game, is the generator of a plethora of data. Harvesting and then using this set of data accordingly can help the selectors pick the teams, find faults in techniques during post-match reviews, and formulate game strategies.
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