Over the years cricket coverage has advanced a lot as there have been latest technological advancements available that have been incorporated in the game which has taken cricket watching on tv to greater and newer heights.There have been some rejections of technologies like use of aluminium cricket bats but generally ICC have rightly been very cautious about making changes in the game which will impact the players and spectators.

The latest technology used in cricket was first shown by Australian sports channel, that is channel 9, where latest technological advances like stump cam, stump mike were used which is followed along with other technical advancements like graphical scoreboard, led stumps which glows with a faint touch in television coverage.

THIRD UMPIRE: In international cricket matches the role of the third umpire is there to supplement the two on field umpires. He sits out of the ground and accesses to tv, takes replay of certain situations (such as disputed catches, boundaries, lbw etc.) to advise the central umpires. The on field umpires are in communication with the third umpire via wireless. The most important role of the third umpire comes when he is asked to adjudicate on run out decisions which really becomes critical to decide for the on field umpires. The third umpire uses video replays and can decide to the nearest frame of the bat touching the crease.

HAWK EYE: Hawk eye is a computer system, first used in 2001, which shows the path of a cricket ball, particularly for lbw decisions as it precisely reveals whether the ball was hitting the stumps or not, this has become indispensable for commentators also as they can guide the viewers about the exact path of the ball.

SNIC-O-METER: Snic-o-meter is a very sensitive microphone located in one of the stumps which can pick up the faintest sound when the ball nicks the bat. It gives a clear view to the audience about a genuine edge from the bat and also used in the referral system.

BALL SPIN RPM AND SPEED GUN: This was first used in the ashes series of 2013 where a high speed camera is focused on the ball to pick up the actual revolutions of the ball and there are speed guns installed in the field to pick up the speed of the ball after delivery.

HOT SPOT TECHNOLOGY: Hot spot technology is used mostly to review whether the bat has hit the ball, particularly if there is a small nick. This technology uses two infra red cameras positioned on either end of the ground and they sense the heat generated from friction by a collision such as ball on pad, glove, bat or ground. Using subtraction technique a series of black and white negative frames are fed into a computer, precisely localizing the ball’s point of combat.

The use of these technologies in television broadcasting has truly revolutionized the watching of cricket and still more new innovations are in the offing like sounding of a beep when a no ball is bowled, or if the arm of a bowler bends more than the allowed limit to be called “chucking” with inertia sensors attached to the bowling arm of a bowler and so on.

By :  Niladri Sarkar

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Tags: cricketICCnew technologies in cricketSportsThird Umpire