Apparently Indian cricket team is also going the high-tech way on their path to revival. This is exactly the sort of information which Aussies and Afrikaans are using for a long time now. Maybe what Pakistan need is not another super-fast bowler, but an Intel-powered lap-top.
Team India turns laptop warriors
Every time a New Zealand wicket falls and a new batsmen comes out in their game against India on Friday, the Indians will know exactly what kind of ball he relishes and what makes him uncomfortable; how many runs he has scored in a particular region of a particular kind of ball; and what kind of delivery he has gotten out to most. In short, they will know exactly where to bowl to him.
That is what they mostly discuss in the huddle they get into each time they claim a wicket. They know this not from long-term memory, but from near-term homework done only the previous evening at a strategy session where they have studied every single relevant ball bowled to the New Zealanders in recent times including in the World Cup.
They know their ‘Uncomfortables’ – a new word that has been introduced to the cricketing lexicon.
At the heart of the Indian cricket team’s performance in the World Cup, and their general cricketing revival, is the use of technology, appropriately enough for a country that is beginning to boast of being masters of the genre.
For several months now, the Indians have been using off-the-field hardware and software aimed at sharpening their on-field cricketing acumen and skills, and the results are beginning to show.
The software tool they use is called e-CricketPro, and tagged to the team is computer jock Shriram Bhargav, on loan from the Bangalore-based Phoenix Global Solutions which engineered the whole idea with advice from veteran Javagal Srinath.
Bhargav, a network engineer whose passion for the game sees him even bowl at the nets, records each game on a ACI Extreme laptop with humongous memory (one gig) and hard drive (80 gig).
While doing so, he provides attributes to each ball, describing its length, direction, pace and what the batsman did with it, defended, pushed, drove, edged, missed etc. At the end of the day, or at any given time, the team can call on Bhargava and ask for specific data capture, query, and report generation.
For instance, Srinath could call for a file of all his slower balls to see how it is working. Ashish Nehra could call for all his bouncers bowled just against New Zealand batsmen in the recent concluded to see how each of them handled it, or just the way he bowled to Fleming.
Ganguly could ask for all his ‘uncomfortables’ to see what he is doing wrong. Even trainer Andrew Leipus is known to call for data to see how the boys are throwing in from the deep.
Bhargava can put the answer to every individual query on to a CD-ROM and give it to the player, who can watch it in the privacy of his room (each Indian team member now carries a personal laptop).
Or he can answer broad team queries at the strategy session the team has on the evening before the game – like for instance watching Shane Bond take all his wickets against India in NZ; or the ‘uncomfortables’ they encountered.
All the major international cricket teams use technology now, but what sets apart the Indian software, says Bhargav, is its speed and wider attributes. Bhargav uses a small, powerful laptop and a larger customized note-book in an aluminum box (that looks like a nuclear football) to power the Indian team.
In a demo for this correspondent at “Jacaranda” – the Indian team’s strategy room at Sandton Sun Hotel in Johannesburg, the cheerful computer geek ran through the program’s remarkable capabilities, throwing up immediate and explicit answers to the most minute queries (say Tendulkar’s straight drives, Ganguly’s dismissals, Bond’s yorkers). Jayasuriya’s off-side play? No problem. Tendulkar’s paddle sweeps? Sure.
The software can spit out wagon wheels and pie charts in a jiffy, offering everything from field setting for Jayasuriya on the basis of his strengths to Vaas’ dismissals against India. The tool can help motivate individual players and also help the team strategise.
“It’s a terrific concept has really helped the team and it’s getting better all the time,” says team vice-captain Rahul Dravid, who calls on the tool to fine-tune his batting. During the tour of West Indies, Dravid felt he was closing up his stance and called for his previous batting files to correct it.
The tool helps spot even minute changes which make a big difference in outcome, he says. The big advantage is it compresses the time it takes to watch a whole video to just the relevant shots, besides offering the advantages of split screen etc for comparison.
