System could help cricketers cope better with fast bowlers

Footage of bowlers is projected onto life-size screens and batsmen’s reactions are analysed to help them develop the ability to read the bowler’s pre-release delivery kinematics, or body movements, to anticipate the type, direction and length of delivery.

With the likes of England’s James Anderson bowling at 90mph (145km/h), it takes the ball 500 milliseconds to reach batsmen, but it takes batsmen 900 milliseconds to decide how to play the ball once it leaves the bowler’s hand. To make up the 400-millisecond difference, batsmen must anticipate where the ball is heading before it is released.

Researcher Karl Stevenson, working with colleagues at the university’s Chelsea School in Eastbourne, said: ‘The system we are developing helps batsmen focus on the most information-rich areas of the bowler’s action at the right moment. This allows them to start preparing a response before the bowler has released the ball, narrowing the 400-millisecond deficit in their favour and allowing them to execute a shot that, in real time, would have been impossible.’