At first glance, this innovation seems set to take the skill out of cricket, and reduce the game to a mechanical exercise.
Sports Mechanics, the Chennai-based technology company that handles the analytics for the Indian cricket team — these are the guys who tell a Sehwag he’s off his stance or an Ishant why he’s being whacked over mid-wicket repeatedly — has just developed a program called ‘Over the Rope’, which basically has the dugout doing the thinking for the cricketer.
Developed over the past six months and using complex regression analysis, the software gives a team an insight into which way the match is going, the position of the game and, importantly, what strategies to be employed to win.
“Right now, a batsman walks in and has to look at the situation and analyse how to play, how many runs to get within a certain timeframe and how to go about it, in addition to dealing with the pressure of executing those plans,” said S. Ramakrishnan (Ramky), the company’s director. “With this, he only has to think about executing the plan. If you allow the batsman to interpret things, you’re complicating it for him and putting the team at risk in case he gets it wrong.”
In simpler terms, for instance, this means the coach/dugout will tell the batsman he has to get 40 runs in the next three overs. His job is just to get those runs in that time. The bowler’s would be to prevent that, knowing fully well what the batsman has to get and execute his plan.
The question Kadambari Murali raises in this story is whether such innovations will kill the spirit of creativity in players.
I wonder? Any kind of informed comment would require a more detailed look at what this software is, what it does and how. Based on this article, though, hard to see any reason to fuss — at best, this seems no more than a specialized calculator that helps the bench do the same sort of sums they do now anyway. You think a batsman walking out with his team on 120, with three wickets in hand, and with 160 as the target doesn’t know what is required of him?
I could be simplifying, and for all I know this “innovation” is capable of far more complex functions. Bottomline though is, one way or other coaches and the team think tank stay on top of the game as it develops, and work on all sorts of permutations and combinations all the time anyway. The key to the game isn’t what coaches, with or without external aids, determine — it lies in what the batsman out in the middle is actually able to do.
Thoughts?
PS: A fairly long, fairly complicated day. Might be off blog for the most part. Links etc on the Twitter stream to your right, folks.
2 comments
If that actually works, we’ll have assembly line cricketers fulfilling supply demand targets. Would it lead to instant layoffs as well?
Maybe. Maybe not. Don’t cricketers today have targets with bat and ball? Each player to the best of my knowledge has an assigned role at all points of the game — much of this is quantified in numerical terms, so I am not sure how much further this pushes the envelope.
Best thing to do I guess is go take a look. Trying to see if I can work it.
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