You are at your home watching a tense cricket match, and the crowd is going crazy with anticipation. And the browler’s delivery hits the pad and beats the batsman, and the umpire raises his finger. Was it actually out? This is when Hawk Eye comes into action. The 21st century’s cutting-edge ball-tracking technology provides the most accurate view of the ball’s trajectory, revolutionizing the way cricket is played today. In this blog, we will delve into the world of Hawk-Eye, its impact on the game, and why it’s so important in modern cricket.
How Does Hawk-Eye actually Work?
One thing we need to understand is that Hawk-Eye is not magic, although it may seem something out of the ordinary. Behind all the graphics and screens, the heart of this system lies in a complex web of 6 high-speed cameras strategically positioned around the cricket ground. These cameras capture and track down the ball’s movement at an extraordinary rate, generating a treasure trove of data. The Data includes pretty much everything that is needed to predict the trajectory of the ball such as ball speed, angle, and the amount of turn.
Now the question arises, how does this data translate into the visually appealing and easy-to-comprehend graphics and images we see on screen? Let’s dive into the process:
Data Acquisition:
The high-speed cameras play the role of the eyes of Hawk-Eye, they capture the ball’s every movement frame by frame throughout its flight. Just imagine hundreds of snapshots taken in a fraction of a second, and keeping a detailed record of the ball’s journey.
Graphics add magic, 3D Reconstruction:
This is one of the major steps where the real magic happens. Highly advanced and specialized hawk eye software comes into full action here, meticulously analyzing the data of every single frame from each camera. The narrates the story and stitches together every single data point, and comes up the most precise 3D graphical image of the ball’s path.
Predictive Analysis:
After capturing and creating a 3D image of the ball’s trajectory, it does not stop here. It uses science and goes one step even further, predicting the ball’s future path. It calculates the path of the ball where the ball would have landed and whether it would have hit the wicket or not.
Visual Representation, broadcast customization:
Finally, the moment we’ve all been waiting for! Hawk-Eye translates the complex calculations into a visual representation that everyone can understand. The system comes up with a advanced graphcical visuals, often displayed on large screens at the ground and broadcasted live, showcasing the ball’s trajectory from the bowler’s hand to its predicted point of impact.
The Hawk-Eye Effect: A Game Changer for Cricket
Nowadays hawk-eye us not only limited to the DRS, instead is it being used to analyze players performance. Data analyst and cricket franchisee have already begin using hawy eye to analyse the key strengths and weaknesses of their players. So every single ball is being recorded and Captured by hawy eye system. As the saying goes, data is the new oil. Likewise, hawk-eye’s precious data provides deeper insights such as what’s the weak zone and strength of the betsman. Once teams have the these valuable insights, it becomes much easier to come up with effective strategies. Let’s take a look at the images below where hawk eye data is shown of of different batsman’s weak areas. The same thing applied to bowler and a lot of performance related insights can be mined from hawk-eye tressure.
