As Australian players are struggling to find their form in the Sheffield Shield matches, Cricket Australia is looking for other means to gear their team for the ultimate battle against the England side.
Cricket Australia is bringing in the latest equipment to make their “misfiring batsmen” more accurate for the Ashes 2010. The latest “technological breakthrough” is known as
ProBatter which is inspired by Baseball.
The Australian team would be using this baseball-inspired training device from next week when they fly out to Brisbane to start their last minute preparations for the first Test match scheduled for 25
November.
The ProBatter software has the same technology that is used in the “Hawk-Eye technology” in tennis.
This software projects a 3D image of bowler- in this case English spinners- who would be running into the crease. As the virtual image of bowler gets ready to reach the crease, a new technological enhanced bowling machine would release the ball.
The 3D image would be projected on a video screen and the ball would be unleashed through the screen.
This technology does not seem to be bothering the England team as they have been using the same software for quite some time now.
The Sports Science Department at the Centre Marc Portus was responsible of introducing the technology to Cricket Australia and showed immense confidence in the output of this technology.
The technology has the potential to give the Aussies some much needed preparation for the Ashes. The England team has been raving about this advancement in sports preparation and the Australian cricket board has been desperately working on the same technology.
After three years of working into this project, the output of the hard work would be analysed once the players start preparing next Monday.
Usually, the ProBatter keeps an archive of bowler’s images which is actually projected as to give the batsman a clear idea of their positions. The England team has been practicing with the Aussie bowler’s images. However, Cricket Australia said
that they do not have any vision of the current England bowling attack and they would practice with a “hypothetical image” of them.