This technology might change UDRS forever

BANGALORE, INDIA: VVS Laxman. Vaughan. Vaseline. During the second India-England Test last August, former England skipper Michael Vaughan stirred up a hornet's nest, when he accused Indian batsman Laxman of applying vaseline on the edges of his bat to avoid being caught nicking the ball on Hot Spot.

A heated debate ensued. Only as expected, also with the Indian cricket administration being never in favour of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS).

"It's ridiculous. Why would Laxman use it?" asked Chinmaya Joshi, a junior undergraduate student, who is involved in a UDRS-related project by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab. He was speaking at EmTech India 2012 on the future of imaging in cricket, based on his team's research findings, here on Wednesday.

The impact of the ball on the bat, he reasoned, would be even more pronounced, if vaseline or petroleum jelly were to be applied on the bat. "In fact, it would be more and of better resolution than in just air," said Joshi.

A team member of him, Siddharth Khular said that it was proven by BBG Sports, the Australian company that pioneered the snickometer system in cricket, that vaseline could not hide the hot spot.

Chinmaya, however, added that application of silicon spray under laboratory conditions did hide it. "When we tested it, no heat signature was seen on the bat," he attested.

After which, they have evolved a fool-proof technology with Femto Photography — "It looks around corners with a trillion frames-per-second camera" — and the Netra (Near-Eye Tool for Refraction  Assessment). Said Joshi, "In Netra, you hold up to the eye, align patterns and send the signals to a computer or a mobile. We have a dynamic range sensor that will detect the impact precisely by locking in a specific frequency."

Femto Photography camera is so accurate that even the light waves slow down while viewing intricate motions. It could be used for Hawk-Eye trackings, said Joshi. By the way, the Hot Spot technology uses Infra Red wave-based imaging system to detect impacts.

The MIT team put into use a $30,000 robotic arm, which is normally employed for other scientific research purposes, for this study. They have also discussed in detail with some international umpires about what kind of issues they had to deal with in such scenarios.

"Soon, on-field umpires can carry an iPhone or any such device or crowd-source data to statistically identify how a batsman middled or edged the ball during an innings.

You can view more about the project at cameraculture.info or eyenetra.com.

Here's wishing this brings to an end all controversial decisions surrounding the Hawk-Eye, Snickometer and Hot Spot technologies.