Technology is ruling the world as our life is completely dependent on them and Sports being one of the most important aspects in everyone’s life has transformed a lot over the years with technology.
Cricket a game which is popularly considered as the religion in India has changed its dynamics since its inception and one such thing which has played a major role in this transformation is the addition of technology in the game be it DRS, Runout review or catching highlights of moving catches our experience of watching the game has become smoother due to advent of these technologies.
The ongoing season of CPL is going on where a new kind of ball popularly abbreviated as “Smart Ball” is used which has added a lot of technical delicacies in the armory.
Let’s know more about Smart Ball in detail to start it how Smart ball is different from other traditional balls in a way that it has an electronic chip embedded in it.
The Ball is developed by a company known as SportCor in collaboration with leading ball manufacturer Kookaburra.
The Chip added inside the ball will provide information such as speed, spin, power a real-time basis on which a particular shot has been hit by the willow and all these things can be tracked via Smartwatch, mobile, or through the specially designed app.
The best part about this smart ball is its weight which is similar to a traditional ball and it doesn’t change with the chip embedded inside.
“We had it tested and verified at the University of Queensland where they had the process where Cricket Australia developed the pink ball,” former Australia pacer Michael Kasprowicz who is now the chairman and co-founder of Sportcor, tells Firstpost. “They (CA) are really rigid about this process. So we went through it and had it third-party verified. The ball’s been used in a blind test in Australian cricket in a Marsh Cup 50-over match where the balls were used in the match just to have a look and see if there was any reaction from the players. And there was none. So we’ve had everything verified and measured. All we’ve done is replace the cork rubber compound. It’s in the center of the cricket ball. And matched it perfectly (with the chip).”
It takes only about five seconds to produce the result which is the biggest reason why it can be used for future purposes for different franchise-based tournaments hard to accept that it can be used in International tournaments.
The manufacturer shared an interesting aspect about designing this Smart ball right from balancing the weight of the ball to designing it everything has been taken care of precisely.
“I started the company back in 2016 after a terrible round of golf,” says Tattersfield. “I love the sport but I’m definitely not the best player, so I came up with the concept of a golf ball that made a noise, so you could find it in the bushes. This changed to a golf ball that connected to your phone and used a bullet trajectory algorithm to predict where your ball was going.
The manufacturer mailed their concept to Kokabura who liked the idea came on the board to design the smart ball in collaboration with us and the rest is history.
