Artificial Intelligence Based Integrated Cricket Coach

Chirag Mandot and Ritika Chawla

Dwarkadas J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Vile Parle (West), Mumbai-400056, India

chirag_mandot2000@yahoo.com, ritschawla@yahoo.co.in

Abstract. In the 21st century, the population is increasing exponentially with

time. Majority of the people in the developing as well as underdeveloped coun-
tries are subdued by poverty. This deeply hampers their progress in the field of
their interest. Many aspiring cricketers cannot be a part of good training and
expert coaching due to lack of resources. For this, we are developing a system
called artificial intelligence based integrated cricket coach which will be under
the government authorities. The upcoming cricketers can use it to practice and
gain expertise in cricket. The system will be initially trained by expert coaches
by giving various inputs and after the complete learning process it can be used
to train individuals. It is an integrated system which has expertise in all aspects
of cricket like batting, bowling and fielding.

Keywords: Sports Coach, Intelligent Game Tutor, Cricket Coach, Artificial In-
telligence, Neural Networks.

1 Introduction
Cricket is an internationally recognized game and with advancement in technology,
this game has witnessed major changes in itself. New technology has made the obser-
vation of the game intricate and minute details of the game can be easily observed.
The technology has great impact on the training of the players to make them more
efficient by providing them the game environment. Majority of individuals, approx-
imately 85-90%, play cricket and rate this game as their best choice for entertainment
in India. With the country having 70 percent of its population below poverty line and
living in rural areas[1], it is not possible for upcoming players to receive cricket
coaching which is at par with international standards. In a survey conducted by us in
few nearby villages, it has been revealed that people are not receiving desired train-
ing, and few training institutes which are providing rudimentary training are not af-
fordable and moreover the training is far below the expected standards.
The previous research work focused on development of equipments like bowling
machine, analysis of the game through video inspection and other equipments which
has led to easy observation of game. There are other systems which compare different
batting styles using fuzzy logic. The use of Virtual Reality to train players with a
virtual environment of playground has also made advances to the training purpose.
Therefore, a need for a system arises which provides actual comprehensive playing
experience and where the need of actual coach is avoided. Hence the system can be
used in places where the presence of excellent human coach is difficult.

S. Unnikrishnan, S. Surve, and D. Bhoir (Eds.): ICAC3 2013, CCIS 361, pp. 227–236, 2013.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013
228 C. Mandot and R. Chawla

50

40

30
Village 1
20 Village 2

10 Village 3

0
Cannot Afford Rudimentray Positive review
training of our system

Fig. 1. Survey Report based on questionnaire regarding acceptance of the system

We have planned to develop an integrated system based on the previous research

done, which will provide training considering all the aspects of game, which includes
batting, bowling and fielding. The system is being planned to be kept with the gov-
ernment authorities so that people with different interests like batting, bowling or
fielding, can use it. This makes it imperative for the system to have all the features.
The technologies used by the system are Image Processing and Artificial Intelligence.
The system will be programmed and implemented in Matlab software language. The
system takes inputs based on Image Processing and the computation is carried out
using Neural Network which helps in training the system. The system aims at devis-
ing its own hardware components which includes camera and bowling machine as-
sembly, bat with installed gyroscope sensor and a camera installed fielding training
machine. The system will be based on user login and after the login; the session of the
player will begin. The system presents rich user interface which will display all the
vital details to the player after the training session ends. Along with that, an analysis
where details related to area of improvements will be provided as well as stored in the
machine. Further, next time when the user logs in, the machine will adapt according
to the user. The system will develop training algorithm based on the user perfor-
mance, for example if the user is weak in playing spin bowling, faces difficulty in
playing off-side balls, and usually gets bowled, then the system will decide the series
of bowling process accordingly and will try to improve the weak areas by providing
detailed graphical report and improvements to be implemented. But there are a few
limitations as for precise results huge computation is required and the system requires
initial coaching to give efficient output at a later stage. Hence, we are building a sys-
tem which will train cricket enthusiast in a comprehensive way and help them to
achieve acme quality of training.