Former India coach Rahul Dravid reveals how AI can be used in cricket, says will be able to predict...

Former India captain and coach Rahul Dravid on Saturday hoped Artificial Intelligence would be able to predict injuries to players in future but also warned against over-use and dependency on technology in cricket.

Dravid said predicting injuries to players is something that has not been done so far despite the advancement of technology.

“On the sporting field, one of the things that you are really hopeful about what AI might be able to do, is (to predict) injuries,” Dravid said at a panel discussion during AMFI Mutual Fund Summit in Mumbai on Saturday.

“You just look at the level of injuries that we have and no one really has a perfect answer as to why people pick up stress fractures and there is no one size fits all; I am just using a stress fracture for the back as an example for fast bowlers.

“You have seen over the last years so much of data, so much of sports medicine, science and stuff going into it but no one being able to really predict that, that’s sad, that’s (about) people’s careers, lives. So if AI can get us there and we will be able to predict injuries,” he added.

Dravid said finding the right balance in use of technology and human judgement is paramount.

“I’m not saying that you can adopt it completely, but certainly it’s a great tool and it’s something that is being used more and more in sport in terms of strategy, in terms of tactics, player development, player enhancement,” he said.

“In this day and age, you’ve got to be able to use all of this data and technology for your benefit.

“(But) you can’t become a slave of it, but certainly there are huge advantages to using artificial intelligence. You’ve got to find that balance between recognising that the data is important,” the batting stalwart said.

Dravid said while technology has helped in matters of “fairer selection” between players, it cannot help picking teams for variety of conditions that teams come across while playing at multiple venues.

“You are already seeing data being used a lot in selection and becoming a lot better in terms of fairer selection, but at the moment we have not reached the point where we can just use data and stats to pick sides for variety of conditions,” he said.

“They are getting there, we are getting better and better at using the data as selectors.

“When we pick an IPL teams we are using the data and analytics a lot more than we did when we first started out in the IPL. We are already there but I don’t think we can completely rely on it,” he added.

Citing the example of premier Indian bowler Jasprit Bumrah, who missed the ongoing Champions Trophy due to a back-related problem with the similar issue also keeping him away from action when Dravid was India’s head coach, the former captain said too much reliance on technology won’t help either.

“Can we clone five Bumrahs or something? I mean, I’m just saying that, but that wouldn’t be fun either, right? I mean, what would be the fun in that, right? Where’s the uniqueness then?” he quipped.

“I think maybe leave sport alone for a bit and we don’t want to get AI too involved in sport. There’s got to be that human element to it. There’s got to be a level of uniqueness to sport. So, that would be my wish really that we’d never get to a point where we are… It becomes easy,” he said.

“Bumrah is unique because it’s so hard to do what Bumrah does,” said Dravid while agreeing that the ace bowler missing the eight-team competition was a tough for India.

Dravid revealed that the Indian team management studied data from past two years in the year leading to 2024 T20 World Cup but it was the coaching staff which decided what to be shared with players and what not.

“Our job is really to collect the data, and I would say that, of the data that we’ve collected in the (2024) T20 World Cup, we did a lot of data in the year and a half, two years leading into that World Cup.

“I would say the players probably saw one hundredth of what we actually saw as coaches. I eventually distilled it down and said this is relevant. There’s no point showing somebody data if you actually can’t… So you can show data to some player, and say, ‘hey, this is what’s wrong with you, this is what you need to improve’.

“But if you have only three days (between matches) and you’re not going to be able to improve that in three days, what’s the point of showing that to a particular player?”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DNA staff and is published from PTI)