Demystifying – Sunil Narine

He is known as an off-spinner to the world; he shot to lime light with 2011 Champions league donning Trinidad & Tobago colors. But his pre-fix off-spinner is hardly suitable for the likes of his talent and for the one who can make the ball talk in both direction with same bowling action; making him all the more difficult to pick. To begin with he has talent in abundance and looking at his IPL stint. The ball which turned more than foot before crashing master’s off stump is the testimony of the talent and bright future he would have. Looking at the kind of analysis which goes one can surely take a bet on the timelines before he is demystified and batsmen start picking him

This was probably the most awaited test debut in sometime specially in English conditions. Had he debuted back with Australia series; looking at the performance in ODIs he would have surely rattled Australians and giving them tough fight. His ODI performance with economy rate of 3.3 (Kind of economy rated during 70s) and average of 14.45 he took 11 wickets in the series. He didn’t torment Oz players like the days in 1970s & 80s but none the less playing him effectively was as much difficult. Video of number of wickets he took.

Looking at his bowling technique; his bag is full of variety and to top it all has accurate length; the only technique he needs to add to this armory will be how to flight the ball efficiently, something which bowlers like Saeed Ajmal has perfected. His all hyped test debut turned out to be chastening one; when Petersen milked him for runs and boundaries with ease. One of the reasons for drubbing being he is more suited to dryer pitch and warmer weather while in England under cloudy and damn conditions ball won’t wear and tear much hence not spinning as expected. Besides his griping of the ball won’t be subtle due to conditions. In these scenarios while conditions are cold & cloudy, flight and guile will be his major weapons. But having said that; he can look up to Shane Warne whose debut figures were 150/ 1.

Narine’s Knuckle ball behaves like a leg break which comes out of the front of his hand and achieved with extraordinary flick of index and middle finger.

Coming to his technique; majorly he bowls around good length and that is where batsmen can read fate of his delivery and playing as late as possible. His bowling style can be graded into 3 styles namely Off break, Leg Break & Knuckle Ball

Narine’s Knuckle ball behaves like a leg break which comes out of the front of his hand and achieved with extraordinary flick of index and middle finger. So the secret lies with how Sunil Narine grips the ball; when he grips the cherry with middle finger on the seam and other 2 sideways – it will be an off break while if Index finger raised slightly lower  on one half & other two fingers placed slightly higher than index finger; then it will be a leg break. The secret of Knuckle ball is all in the grip when the ball is held with index and middle finger at one side and the other one at opposite side placed a bit lower than index and middle finger.

When Greg Chappell wrote “The Brain is Better Cricketer than you will ever be” he emphasizes on mental aspect involved in the game when competing opposite player of supreme talent and the one who presents lot of diversity and keeps batsmen guessing. Sunil Narine’s case is similar where vision of the batsmen is of perennial importance. To tackle his variation batsmen can visualize the pitch map area from shot of length to full length into matrix form. Based on the ball being pitched in any square of the matrix decides the shot selection. There will be some form of risk associated always when facing someone who can turn the ball in either direction equally with point blank precision. Irony of facing Narine would be; the batsmen must hit the ball without knowing exactly where it is, or precisely when it will be there.

Considering the fact based on Sunil Narine’s bowling pitch map, his 70% plus deliveries are on good length and the ones which are pitched on good length but on wider side has more chance of coming into the batsmen (IPL 5 – Sachin Tendulkar’s Dismissal) or those being top spin which hold its line but skids a bit more than orthodox off-break. Considering his penchant more towards good length delivery; this gives batsmen more time to play the ball & as late as possible. In test match scenario where unlike T20 batsmen is not under pressure to attack almost every ball; he has lot of time to understand and predict the path of delivery.

While playing good length deliveries as late as possible is one option; but dealing with fuller length batsmen will need to make sure get as close to the pitch of the ball as much possible; so even if it deviates after pitching, it will not have moved far enough to beat the edge of the bat. Secondly making sure  playing defensive shot with ultra soft hands in order to make sure if ball deviates and takes the edge, it will not have momentum to reach close in fielders

Facing Sunil Narine will always present a need to predict, to launch a stroke in a particular direction or lofted stroke at point in space without being convinced that ball will arrive in that position at the right time. This cannot be achieved by practice and will remain greatest plus point for Sunil Narine when he dismisses top batsmen. He has the ability to produce deceptive visual information during his approach and delivery, exhibiting misleading signals will persuade the batsmen to play a stroke where the ball mysteriously is not.

Sunil Narine will have to reinvent himself once the magic code is intruded and he becomes predictable. Guile and accuracy will be his true companions if he has to headline major cricketing events.

Bewildered with his talent – IPL franchise KKR consider themselves blessed to have Sunil Narine in their ranks; who was also in shortlist of Mumbai Indians & Pune warriors. His talent was much appreciated in IPL and incidentally WICB was toast of many jokes like “No one can pick Sunil Narine – Not even West-indies picks him”.  This is a modern era where 24 Cameras focus on each and everything player does on the ground; player’s mannerisms are tracked to the “T” in order to devise strategy around. Sunil Narine will have to reinvent himself once the magic code is intruded and he beomces predictable. Guile and accuracy will be his true companions if he has to headline major cricketing events.

DRS – To Be or Not To Be….

Introduction of UDRS in late 2000 has always been seen as Universally Disabled Referral System by BCCI. Burning their fingers with DRS in 2008 Sri-Lanka series; the Indian Board is in no mood to recline towards the idea of bringing technology in usage when it’s not 100% full proof. Having given the above argument; it’s imperative to understand Umpire’s decisions on field are bound by human errors which DRS aim to reduce but with 95%+ accuracy levels. While at heart ICC has right intent to maximize fair play with DRS but usage of DRS has been far more complex then it is on face value and it surely a bone stuck in ICC’s throat which they can neither gulp nor chuck it out.

While there are lot of technologies which are part of DRS system like Snickometer, Hot-Spot & most controversial being the ball tracking technology. Ball tracking technology is the one which has caught attention of lot of folks around. It didn’t matter if it was ex-cricketer or an analyst, everyone was obliged to talk about it; irrespective of the fact if they understood it or not. While there are lot of controversial decisions which do not build up a good case for DRS like the one in Semi Final of the World Cup 2011, Sachin Tendulkar got acquitted when a close decision against him was reversed on review; this controversial decision made ICC release public statement on clarifying working of Hawk Eye; See here.

In WC 2011 Semi Final, Sachin Tendulkar got acquitted when a close decision against him was reversed on review; this controversial decision made ICC release public statement on clarifying working of Hawk Eye

Another incident when Australia travelled Sri Lanka in 2011, a controversial DRS supported LBW decision went against Philip Hughes; which on replays showed a different story altogether. While replays suggested that ball would have missed off-stump after pitching on middle stump. While Hawk-Eye pitch mat tracked ball to hit leg stump hence favoring umpire’s decision. While in Phil Hughes’s case as per Hawk Eye the carry (distance from pitching point to point of impact) was 25 CM for this delivery; hence there was margin of error and ball was shown hitting the leg stump. This limitation of Hawk Eye is covered in below paragraph. This decision brought the ire of Simon Taufel most reputed of elite panel. The perspective & the questions raised by him mirrored the feelings of viewers as well. He said –

“What are the technology tools we have to achieve that (read Correct decisions), and then how accurate are those tools? Have we really investigated that from an independent perspective, and have we got a categorical answer with that? Is it reliable on the day, rather than just relying on the provider of that technology to say ‘it is x-amount accurate and the result is right’ and we just take that on face value?”

“From an umpiring perspective, as a third umpire, it is incredibly challenging here [in Sri Lanka] because the frame rates used by Ten Sports per second will be different to the ones used by Sky in Britain. There’s ultra-motion available in the UK, there’s none of that here. We have Hotspot in the UK, we don’t have Hotspot here. The camera rates used by Hawk-Eye here would be different to the camera rates used there.”

So From a layman’s point how does Ball tracking technology work? To answer this; here is the summary of functioning of Hawk-Eye; a predominant vendor of ball tracking technology. As per Hawk-Eye they use the principle of Triangulation; it uses data in the form of visual images and frames provided by 4 high-speed video cameras located at different angles around pitch or area of play. As per information on Hawk Eye website; they use multiple synchronized, high speed vision processing cameras with high frame-rate to capture the path of the cricket ball from the bowler’s hand to the batsman’s point of impact on bat or pad. This process constructs the path of cricket ball by assembling it frame by frame. These frames when assembled produce position of the ball at regular interval (also known as frame rate). These frames enable to calculate how much the ball bounces and what shall be its next position. This principle shows how ball track & prediction of its trajectory is produced if the object blocking (in this case bat or pad) is absent.

Ball tracking has to disected frame by frame capturing of ball trajectory, the area where ball pitches & clear point of impact on either bat or pad. Once the trajectory of ball is determined there is certain confidence level taken into consideration which determines the path of the ball post it hits the object (bat or pad) blocking its path. The confidence level at which the ball path is calculated post it hits blocking object is close to 95+ percent accurate. This technology does not take into consideration like weather conditions, if day light available is sufficient, swing or spin into account; it shall just follow its path straight after point of impact.

There are limitations with offerings from both vendors such as Hawkeye cannot predict the path of the ball with certainty when the carry (distance from pitching point to point of impact) is below 40 cm and the distance from impact to stumps is at least 2m. To understand DRS better we need to understand how it works with both Hawkeye Innovations (who make Hawkeye) and Animation Research Ltd. (who make Virtual Eye). While Hawk Eye captures the action at 106 frames per second; Virtual Eye captures that at 230 frames per second. Which in turn captures more ball positions (Compared to Hawk Eye) from pitching point till the point of impact; See here. Moving ahead with ball tracking technology Animation research intends to introduce Hot Spot cameras to capture the action in order to enhance virtual eye technology. All these innovations call for different level of field testing in order to arrive at best technology which shall hold true under any circumstances for example which vendor can alter its frame rate for a spinner(less frame rates required) and fast bowler(more frame rates required) due to the pace. This kind of flexibility shall evolve DRS from its current form and usage.

ICC made a press statement in mid 2011 about improvement of Ball tracking system post testing; but failed to give any competitive analysis (Virtual Eye vs. Hawk Eye) on the test considered or in the environment in which such testing was done; as basis for this statement; neither was any controversial case from world cup or past decision being studied in order to conclude on the improvement of ball tracking technology. These line items does suggest that ICC wants to implement technology at the earliest without being sure about its nature and accuracy.

Ask this question to any ex-cricketer (who is not Indian) on DRS and answer would be its must for cricket to flourish and these opinions turn into a nonstop debate or more so protest; once a wrong or controversial decision is witnessed. But when questioned more on technical aspect of Virtual Eye or Hawk Eye; I am not sure the answer shall as be as fluent and convincing from ex-cricketers. At times these technology favoring statements are made to achieve “I TOLD YOU SO“ moment in history of cricket. They want to see the ball tracking being done without asking questions on its viability. Having talked in favor of DRS they forget that these ball tracking technology need certain factors such as light, bowling style and speed to be considered for accurate decision making. This where the fundamental difference lies and why Indian Board is not in favor of taking up DRS and its foreign counterparts are.

The question we need to ask here is – Does ICC feel burdened and obligated to promote usage of technology which would sooth their ego or does ICC want to maximize fair play by getting as many decisions right as possible? The prima-facie objective of DRS is to assist umpires in Decision making where as the current scenario involves usage of DRS more as Decision Reversal System. DRS is complicated issue and does not have just hotspot or ball tracking in its premises. It’s just not mere a question of DRS – To Be or Not To Be… or is it?