Hawkeye: Technology in Cricket

Do you watch Cricket? I bet you do. You must have many times seen a virtual pitch map for bowlers in the course of the game and you also might have heard commentators mention ‘Hawkeye’. But do you know what ‘Hawkeye’ actually is and how it works? Don’t worry folks; you’ll get the simplest of idea of Hawkeye.

Hawkeye, known as the commentators ‘dream’ and Umpires ‘Curse’ was invented by Dr. Paul Hawkins, a PhD in Artificial Intelligence. Based on the Principle of Triangulation, Hawkeye is a complex computer system used in Cricket, tennis and other global sports to trace the trajectory of the ball and display the accumulated records of the most likely path of the ball as a moving image on our TV screens.

Hawkeye alias ‘Ball Tracking Technology’ uses six sophisticated, specially placed powerful video cameras around the field to track the path of the ball, from when it was released from the bowler’s hand until the ball is dead.

Decision Review System

The Cameras record action at around 60 frames per second, about twice the speed of standard commercial TV. The image captured by the camera is processed by a special computer where the image/video feeds are turned into 3D image to show how the ball would have travelled on an imaginary Cricket pitch. The Technology is said to be 99.99% accurate and is capable to track any type of seam, bounce, spin and swing. So we can see the actual pitch maps on our Television Screens.

Because of its reliability, Hawkeye is used in decision making process. In cricket, Hawkeye is a part of the Decision Review System. It is used for Reviewing Leg before wicket Decisions. It is also used for a similar case in Tennis.

      By: Sirish Paudel