Cricket is no exception to technology impacts. We have seen during the past decade how this sport has benefited (!) by introduction of technology. Continuing this trend, rather at a increased pace I wondered how cricket would be around 2015. These are simply the glimpses of my thoughts at this point in time:
- Smart Pitch Reader : Instead of manual pitch reports there would be specialized devices which would scan the pitch with various sensors for factors like moisture, hardness, soil type, grass length, grass orientation, wind direction & speed etc. The collected data would then be analysed with the help of data-mining techniques with the global database and the behaviour of pitch would be predicted with maximum possible accuracy levels.
- Smart Fielding Guide : Think of a situation when the captain is running out of ideas. He would be given a specialized device which would guide him to set the fielding. He might get spots in the ground illuminated (indicating fielder positions). The captain would be given a choice with defensive or aggressive settings. The filed positions would be selected based on the bowler, batsman and run-rate statistics. Again, here also we can apply data mining techniques to find the right combination.
- Smart Stadiums : Watching cricket in the stadium can never be replaced by watching it on TVs. Any how, when we watch it on TV there are advantages like specific stats being displayed based on the context. If we can club this advantage in to the stadiums think of the experience that the spectators would get. There might be holographic statistics displays over the heads of every or selected player (which would change based on the context of the game) to enrich the viewing experience.
As I pointed out in the beginning the above 3 are only samples. There might be many such innovations which would make the sport more and more technology centric. Having said all these things the very core constitution of the sport need to be unchanged, or so I feel.
Ps: I submitted these ideas to Neo Cricket "Sports Innovator" competition couple of months ago. These ideas doesn't got short-listed there. By watching their program I understood that they might have thought these ideas too futuristic. The ideas they selected were directly applicable improvements like crowd noise meter etc.
Nevertheless I thought of posting these here.
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