Development of a Smart Cricket Ball for Advanced Performance Analysis of Bowling

AbstractCricket bowling requires high level of skills in many ways (e.g. physically and mentally). The ball delivery technique is one of these important skills which can be optimised with advanced training methods. These training methods hinge on advanced performance parameters. Development of a low cost smart cricket ball will address the shortcomings of the existing systems and discover and explore cricket bowling kinematics and dynamics. In the past cricket bowling kinematics has not been properly studied using instrumented balls due to technical limitations of sensor system and electronics design. The aim of the project was to develop a highly portable instrumented cricket ball for recording the ball's kinematics and calculating dynamic performance parameters from kinematic data. The ball is designed in such a way that it exactly feels and looks (i.e. mass and material) as a real cricket ball. The ball is constructed from leather hemispheres, an impact proof Nylon6/6 nutshell, a shock damping foam material, and miniaturized electronics circuit

Bowling Performance Assessed with a Smart Cricket Ball: A Novel Way of Profiling Bowlers

Profiling of spin bowlers is currently based on the assessment of translational velocity and spin rate (angular velocity). If two spin bowlers impart the same spin rate on the ball, but bowler A generates more spin rate than bowler B, then bowler A has a higher chance to be drafted, although bowler B has the potential to achieve the same spin rate, if the losses are minimized (e.g., by optimizing the bowler’s kinematics through training). We used a smart cricket ball for determining the spin rate and torque imparted on the ball at a high sampling frequency. The ratio of peak torque to maximum spin rate times 100 was used for determining the ‘spin bowling potential’. A ratio of greater than 1 has more potential to improve the spin rate. The spin bowling potential ranged from 0.77 to 1.42. Comparatively, the bowling potential in fast bowlers ranged from 1.46 to 1.95

Effect of the Grip Angle on Off-Spin Bowling Performance Parameters, Analysed with a Smart Cricket Ball

In the off-spin bowling grip, the ball is clamped between index and middle fingers. Spin bowlers attempt to select a spread angle between these two fingers that achieves comfort and optimises performance. The aim of this paper was to investigate whether the standard grip is superior to narrow and wide grips. The bowling performance parameters were obtained from a smart cricket ball. Smart ball data revealed that the performance parameters varied with grip type. The following parameters were optimum at the standard grip: spin rate, resultant torque, spin torque, peak angular acceleration, and peak power. The following parameters were optimum at standard and wide grips: efficiency. The following parameters were optimum at standard and narrow grips: pitch angle of spin axis. The following parameters were optimum at the wide grip: precession and the precession torque. In general, the data tended to show that the standard grip is most effective for spin bowling. However, more research is needed to confirm this result, because the precession and precession torque were optimum at the wide grip, suggesting that this may have a superior performance over the standard and narrow grips

Effect on Bowling Performance Parameters When Intentionally Increasing the Spin Rate, Analysed with a Smart Cricket Ball

A smart cricket ball was used to investigate the influence of increased spin rate on the bowling performance parameters. In three spin bowlers, the performance parameters were compared before and after increasing the spin rate. The first bowler increased the spin rate by 22%, decreased the normalised precession the angle at which the spin rate vector moves into the torque vector—the lower the more efficient), and increased the torque, angular acceleration and power, showing an improvement in all performance parameters. The second bowler showed no improvement in any performance parameters. The third bowler increased the spin rate marginally, but insignificantly; but improved the normalised precession dramatically (reducing it by 50%). The research results suggest that the mere intention to improve the spin rate changes bowling technique in way that optimises normalised precession, even if the spin rate does not actually increase