After 6 long years, a ray of hope for Assam researchers as Assam Cricket Association opens its windows, if not doors

Photo: PTI 

For cricket, statistician since ages have hooked their eyes only on two aspects of the game – bowling and batting. These statistical highlights and the numbers game has captivated a cricket crazy nation of ours. But none of us have given much stress upon measuring the performance of fielders, other than three researchers – Dr Dibyajyoti Bhattacharjee, Research Scholar Hemanta Saikia of Assam University Silchar and Prof. HH Lemmer of Johannesburg University, South Africa, in 2012.

After running from post to pillars for almost six years, light has finally shone upon the three researchers after Assam Cricket Association (ACA) reviewed their work and suggested some changes and then allow these researchers assess their final experiment. The trio have been granted permission to use their technique “Field-o-Meter” in the upcoming Ranji, Duleep or Deodhar Trophy matches and later an ODI between West Indies and India, slated to be held in Guwahati in November this year.

“We have been asked to make some slight changes to our Field-o-Meter software. Apart for rating a fielders or their brilliant saves and catches, we have been asked to rate their misses also. We will now update the software based on the requirement of the fielding coach. After that, we will experiment this on any of the state matches and if found working successfully, we can apply the same in the India-Windies ODI. We can then proudly claim our invention as the entire cricketing nation would count on our software,” Dibyajyoti said.

Not that the trio have not tried earlier, but even after writing to 17 state boards and seven International cricket playing nations over the years, no one replied. But Dibyajyoti and his co-researchers didn’t stop there. They formulated a mathematical model to take their statistical marvel forward.

Field-o-Meter has been developed in three layers. In the first layer, it is checked if the fielding activity corresponding to a particular ball has led to a dismissal or not. In the second level it is checked that if the dismissal has taken place, then what was the ranking of the batsman who was dismissed. A batsman with higher rating, if dismissed, shall give more credit to the fielder than a batsman with lower ranking. In the third level, the difficulty associated with each ofthe fielding activity, whether a dismissal or otherwise, is quantified.

With the advent of T-20 matches these days, fielding has become an integral part of the whole set up; saving runs or catapulting an amazing run out changes the course of the game. While IPL has been a big hit for BCCI, Big Bash ofCricket Australia has caught the imagination of avid spectators.

Dibyajyoti says their method was used by Cricket Australia in Big Bash in 2016. “They even claimed that they are pioneers in this field. But, I strongly refutes as it was found by us way back in 2012 and we have the copyrights of it. Our work was published in the International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching and was named “A Double Weighted Tool to Measure the Fielding Performance in Cricket.”

As for now, all eyes would be upon these researchers once again to see whether they can make ACA, BCCI & later the ICC happy and make Field-o-Meter a successful invention.

With inputs from Aniruddha Laskar (anilaskar@gmail.com)