Artificial intelligence is not replacing the player, coach or analyst, but it is allowing them to do more.
Freddie Wilde, an analyst with teams in the Indian Premier League and the Hundred and head of cricket intelligence at CricViz, says “almost all elements” of his day-to-day work have now been touched by AI. The models are improving, the tools are faster and more information is being processed.
For Wilde, AI has made him more autonomous. Tasks that once needed a data engineer or data scientist can now be tried by the analyst themselves.
For a batter, that may mean knowing where a bowler is most likely to pitch and which risks are worth taking. For a bowler, it may mean identifying a weakness against a particular angle, length or field.
China staged its second World Humanoid Robot Games last month. More than 500 robots competed in football, athletics, boxing and more. Many stumbled or needed human help, but one ran 100m in 8.64sec.
The footage was amusing, but the progress was sobering.
Ray Kurzweil ’s Law of Accelerating Returns argues that technological advancement is exponential.
The quieter transformation is already under way, in the systems being built to measure and develop players.
Prof Adeela ahmed Shafi, of the University of Gloucestershire and a board member at Gloucester CC, says the aim is not to replace coaches’ judgment, but to make it visible.
We may see fewer sentences with the fingerprints of writers such as Gideon Haigh or Mike Atherton and more efficient versions of what cricket writing is expected to sound like.