Yesterday, May 24th, I had gone to see a cricket match. It was the Royal Challengers Bangalore vs the Gujarat Lions. Though the match was incredibly interesting another thing caught my attention: The Snickometer. This particular technology caught my attention due to a particular incident in the match.
Later a screen displayed the snickometer and it clearly showed that the ball had not touched the batsmen and hence was rightfully called a wide.
For more info on wide balls: https://www.lords.org/mcc/laws-of-cricket/laws/law-25-wide-ball/
What amazed me was that the snickometer could detect very small interferences and hence today's blog is about the SNICKOMETER.
The snickometer(snicko for short) was actually invented by an English computer scientist Allan Plaskett. It was first used in 1994 in the UK.
The actual technology of the snickometer is very interesting. It has three parts:
(a) A very sensitive microphone located in one of the stumps
(b) An oscilloscope which measures the sound wave
(c) A high speed camera which records the ball passing by.
These components make the snicko very useful in t20 matches where every decision by the umpire can change the flow of the game.
When the ball nicks the bat, the oscilloscope trace will pick up sounds. At the same time, a high speed camera records the ball passing the bat, and by the shape of the sound wave you can determine whether a disturbance has occurred or not.
This is an extremely useful system but comes with a minor flaw. The snickometer can distinguish very well between two different points of contact. For example if the bat and the pads are extremely close it is difficult to differentiate whether the ball has hit the pad or the ball.
Snicko is now an essential part of modern day cricket. Getting to know about it increases your knowledge and can be very well classified under the "Did you know?" section of any group.
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