Hot Spot whatnot

The buzzword this week in cricket circles has been Hot Spot. Ok … two words! This edgy technology has certainly had its fair share of red-banner mileage. Whether it has been in connection with speculated Vaseline use, masking stickers on bat edges, mischievous tweets from Michael Vaughan, insinuations that court proceedings are warranted or just checking the legitimacy of an edge, it has been out there.

Plenty of comment has been levelled at this innovation, but how much do we actually know about it? Let me enlighten.

Hot Spot was first used for cricket in 2006 and has certainly raised the bar in the conclusive evidence stakes regarding umpiring adjudication. We have heard recently from the inventor and owner of the brand that it is not 100% accurate but very close, and the sooner we all get used to the fact that nothing is, the better off we will all be.

Factors such as extreme heat or very bright sunshine can currently affect the reliability of the product but with time, research and – importantly – growing confidence in this invention, this will be improved.

Hot Spot uses technology that was originally introduced for the military, specifically for tracking jet-fighters, warships, tanks and satellites. Its job in cricket is to determine whether or not the ball made contact with some part of a batsman’s body or bat upon appeal. It uses infrared camera technology to determine the outcome and provides evidence by way of thermal imaging, which is supplied following an inspection of friction.

Four high-powered, strategically placed remote cameras capture the imagery and record the heat or friction generated by the impact of a cricket ball against another object. This data is then ingested by the supporting computer technology and a series of negative images are subsequently generated.

The basic function of this extraordinary technology is to ‘feel the heat’ that is generated by the friction of two objects colliding and then convert that to a position that provides decipherable verification. This conclusive evidence determines the ball’s point of impact or in some cases the bat hitting the pad or scraping the pitch.

Listen up… here is an idea that would provide a comprehensive solution to the DRS concerns that are prohibiting universal implementation. If the Hot Spot evidence could be married with high-speed camera ball-tracking technology to accurately illustrate the point of impact for LBWs, therefore providing a further exact cross-reference point for examination of precision, then we would be cooking!

Catch ya later …