Anil Kumble The New ‘Bat Man’; Comes Up With Chip-Embedded Version To Help Players Better Their Game

A tiny chip, the size of a credit card weighing less than five grams, will change the way cricket is played and watched, according to legendary Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble, reports LiveMint.

The former coach of the Indian team, who is also an engineering graduate from RV College in Bengaluru, has introduced the concept of a “power bat” which will have the chip embedded on to its shoulder from which data will be fed into the stump box while being captured and processed by Microsoft’s Azure Sphere. This data will then be available to help broadcasters analyse plays in real-time and for the player to examine after.

The data will help analyse shots and break them into measurable parameters such as the quality of the shot, swing, power, and twist. It will help batsmen figure out chinks in their armour so they can become better.

The concept has already been tried out in the Tamil Nadu Premier League and is ready for the next step by helping broadcast partner Star Sports. The gadget is believed to work for other sports as well, with different versions of it already present in NASCAR Racing, National Football League (NFL) and the Spanish Football League, according to Peggy Johnson, executive vice-president, business development, Microsoft. Adding more parameters to the existing ones are also under way.

Kumble said this would not only help batsmen get better but would help bowlers as they can analyse and understand the batsmen’s weakness. The partnership between Spektacom and Microsoft happened when Kumble met the company’s Chief Executive Officer and avid cricket fan Satya Nadella last year at an event and had taken merely a year to get the project into broadcast.