Why Data will drive the future of Sport
[Music]
hello
thanks for the opportunity given for me
to take you through to the 18 years of
my experience of my journey
which really started you know i could
rather say
i’m someone who started studying in a
government
voice school in krishna a small town in
tamil nadu
and then i played some cricket there and
i played close to
under 1922 under 25 combined b6 for
tamil nadu and i’ve been part of some
goals too for cricket as well and i also
had a dream of playing for the country
and representing india doesn’t it
everyone will have the same kind of
passion when you really put your pats on
and i was no different but finally i
came to know that there are a lot of
players who are better than me so i
couldn’t really
get through to that level what i really
wanted to be the
burning passion inside didn’t really
take up to the next level
in 1999 i became a qualified umpire in
bcca
thanks to again to the cricket
association i had dreams
of really making it to the international
stage you know by stepping into
melbourne
eden gardens and new landscape town as
an empire but unfortunately even that
didn’t kick up
i was studying electronics and
communication engineering in university
of madras
so the pressure actually was to make
sure you need to study well get a
distinction
and then probably try and look for a job
and then play cricket but then pursue
your umpiring carrier but unfortunately
you know what
that’s not what exactly it’s going to
work if you have that pressure going on
and then i ended up in a very good it
firm
and a very good salary and all these
things but always i wanted to make sure
you know i want to do something what i
am doing but i
i don’t know how exactly i’m going to do
that because as a player
unfortunately i was not up to the market
as an empire i don’t know how to proceed
after i got my qualification certificate
so when i was thinking about it
then in 2000 early in 2000
when i saw an article that came up in
the hindu that the indian cricket team
headed by the coach john wright is
sitting in a software firm called
phoenix global solutions
to develop a software tool which is
going to help the cricketers
really to take their game up and do some
strategies for the opponents and other
things
then i thought look i got some
cricketing knowledge about this passion
i’m a very good software developer why
can’t i do things of my own that is the
day i started developing my software
apart from working in the software
company and the passion continued there
so that is where once i got my software
done i used to take it to all cricket
associations
i think used to take it to all clubs i
used to take it to all former cricketers
to really get the feedbacks
how exactly it was looking and then
luckily
i landed up in the national cricket
academy where i was living in bangalore
to showcase
you know the software to fee of the
coaches who came for the seminars and of
course the admin manager at that time
so they really got impressed and said
that okay look this is really looking
good
he said that can you come and join the
national cricket academy
i didn’t have any second thoughts at all
i said that i’m going to quit my highly
paid i.t job to join in a contract job
for the national cricket academy because
i knew that
now at that age i can take a independent
decision of mine to make sure that i can
really get
a life out of my passions and then
slowly
i got a chance to be a part of the
indian under 19 team
in a world cup in 2006 which was held in
colombo in sri lanka
so that is what exactly that gave me a
break a struggle for you to convince
that there is a
place for the laptop in the dressing
room that took a while
and there was nobody to mentor me or
gave me what exactly has to be done
in performance analysis to make sure
it’s going to be an
influence in the bracing room i had no
idea the software is going to throw you
all the statistics and other things
there is much more into it
how are you going to involve data into
it how are you going to get the
strategies
pertaining to the opposition how are you
decode
you know the weakness of the operands
how are you going to make sure you come
up with some intelligence which is going
to improve the performances of your own
players and your team i had no idea
all of a sudden i got an approach from
indian hockey coach mr joking carvalho
all of a sudden i got a call saying that
we need you in the sports authority of
india
in bangalore i got no idea at all why is
this gentleman calling me the moment i
stepped down to his room
the one thing he told me is we want you
in the indian hockey team
i can be very honest with you saying
that i had no idea
whatsoever about hockey at all i told
him that i have not even seen one
match i don’t even know what i can do
with the hockey team he said that i like
your brains
i read a lot of articles about you i
want to make sure this is what
i need to do from you then what happened
was
i sat with him and he said that tomorrow
you’re going to come with us you’re
going to travel with us
with to the indian hockey team for a
champions trophy
in germany i said that it took a while
and said okay let let me think about it
the greatest motivation i got that time
is when he left the indian team
he wrote in his book and he came up with
a book called
indian summers where he wrote very
clearly about this guy who’s a
passionate guy used to come from
the i.t engineer from bangalore and used
to feed me
you know all the knowledge and all these
things which was really really helpful
i wish to see him one day in
international cricket that was the
biggest
boost i got and going back to 2007 with
a hockey team
another thing is the coach asked me only
one thing look we are giving you an
opportunity to serve the nation the next
year there is
olympics coming in we will teach you the
game
all i wanted to know is i want to make
sure i take your intelligence your
brains to see that
how can this benefit the hockey team i
had no idea
next day we are catching the flight from
bangalore
to france in 11 hours the coach is
sitting next to me and he’s telling me
what has to be done for the software i’m
doing the coding
software programming in the flight from
bangalore to france that is 11 hours
when he landed in france the software is
ready
it took me that particular tournament
for me to get used to what hockey is all
about
and then finally we ended up with a
bronze medal there
and then we went for the asia cup three
four months later and
finally we ended up winning the asia cup
so before that i also developed a
software in tennis because
i’m always a passionate fan of tennis so
and then once i developed the software
you know i put a paper submission to
international tennis federation saying
that
this is what the match analysis software
can tennis
can do and how are you going to decode
the opponent strengths and weaknesses
and how it can be useful
so i got a call from international
attendees federation saying that
you know we are more than happy for you
to come and give a lecture
on your software on september 9 2007 in
uk
but unfortunately the finals of the asia
cup between
india and korea that is going to be held
up in chennai was also on september 9th
the coach told me only one thing hockey
coach i’m not going to stop you but we
need you this is the finals we need to
win the asia cup
it’s your decision because we’re not
going to stop your growth it’s for you
to decide whether
the gold medal for india and the asia
cup or you want to just decide going on
to present your paper submission in
that itf seminar unfortunately we got
knocked out in the final seconds
england that’s the first time indian
hockey team unfortunately didn’t make it
to the
main olympics in 2008 that was going to
be held in
beijing china so that was really a
heartbreak and then that is a time
ipl came into emergence and raul dravid
approached me
and asked me can he join our team
then all of a sudden out of a blue moon
then i got a
i got a call from one of the cricket
managers dr musaji from qriket south
africa saying that i am in bangalore for
the icc awards function
i just want to have a look at what you
can offer then i showcased him what i
can do
and then he immediately said look we are
going to give you a contract
that is only for six months probation
leading to the world cup in 2011 in
india
and then the first time i’m going to
south africa to be part of the proteus
team even though i’ve been there
for ipl and champions league but this is
going to be the first time going to be
the proteus team
in south africa there the opponents are
none other than india
so when i went in there a lot of people
will be asking that how much
data drive performance analysis so i’m
going to showcase you
a few of the examples on how influential
is your data
and how much you really make the data
drive performance analysis so it’s
either way you need to make sure you
need to make a right marriage between
data
and your performance analysis skill it’s
the first time people
felt that india edge over south africa
so one of the key factor for them is
going to be
explosive here in the savage top of the
order
so he’s someone who used to take the
game away in a session or two when you
allow him to back
close to two or three hours so when he
started analysing virende seva
so when i saw the last thousand five
hundred
test runs within the seventh school lot
of friends have gone through third man
so my way of doing it i used to watch
the last two
000 deliveries battered by batsmen
patiently
and then i will draw my own strategies
of
what is going to be the line of attack
what is the field i am going to set
so when in the strategy meeting when i
said that i want to have a
third man for beer in this seva because
of the slashes that’s going in when i
when i clearly watched his technical
flaw what he has got or rather i should
not take it
as a technical flaw that’s the technique
what he has got
where he drives sun slashes one degrees
most of the balls
go through the air and third man i said
i want a third man but not many people
were really ready to accept that idea
because in a test match
when you take the new brand new ball in
south africa you would rather want to
have another sleep or you want to have
another attacking catching position
that’s what exactly everyone felt so i
said that this is what it is going to be
a catching position
so after a lot of deliberation finally
the captain graham smith said
let’s let’s try this for the first six
hours not many people are
happy about it but finally they said
that okay let’s try this for
the first six over they took one fielder
for the left side that’s from mid on and
put him on
the third man we took only three balls
when dale stay involved that particular
delivery where he exactly wanted the
ball
leaving the covers out third ball
virender sevak flashes
and he becomes the first batsman in test
history
to get out within two overscored third
man
it went straight to ashimamla at short
term
if you can ask me what exactly is the
amount of
data drive in this it’s minimal
because normally when you sit in a
meeting people are going to say when i
say
third man is a catching option lot of
people will come and ask me can i have
his dismissals getting caught at that
man
i didn’t even have one to show because
that is the first time it has happened
for him
so this is how you need to interpret
data
into performance analysis so when you go
for the next stage where i am going to
say how much
pivotal role that has played i can take
another
example in t20 world cup 2014 in
bangladesh when we are playing new
zealand
in a must win game because we lost the
first game
to sri lanka if we lose another game we
are going to be
back home to south africa so that time
we battered and we scored 170 against
new zealand
and normally when it comes to t20
cricket there is a lot of data research
there when the player really comes in
first
because in t20 there’s going to be a
power play of only two fielders outside
and it’s up to the power play it’s going
to be five fielders outside
so the extractor players for them if you
see that is going to be obviously
martin guptill at the top kane
williamson with the topper
and rostral of the order so if you can
see
the particular strategy document what
i’m sharing here is it’s a pitch map for
rostel
with strike plates mentioned normally
what we do is what type of rockers
that’s going to be a potent weapon which
everyone knows that’s not going to be a
rocket since what kind of joker
where he struggles based on very news on
the crease and where he plays his shots
so why do you have a system your
flip stamp yorker straight yoga feet
yorkers
and then what else of the other delivery
when you see when we particularly
saw that that the good length at five
meters
when he bowled probably
or the fourth stump of the fifth strum
that is where he had got
least strike rate the game boiled down
where they required 55 runs of seven
hours kane williamson batting on 50 and
ross taylor batting
i don’t think there is any rocket
science to say which team is going to
hop around that side the only thing you
need to make sure it’s whole
good length on a bangladesh tracks where
it’s not much of a bounce which
doesn’t allow him to really swing his
own the last ball when it required
three runs you can see ross taylor
moving outside the austrian
the moment he moves out straight awesome
when you say that it’s a fifth stump
good length okay what you’ve got to do
is to adjust your length based on that
particular distance when he moves on
and that’s what dale stein did and that
ended in a dirt ball again for us
to win that particular match and we
entered the semi-finals
so this is how the data drives you
through
so there are also sometimes where the
data also can be tricky i’m going to
take you to
another example where when south africa
toured india in 2015
the game started boiling down to the
wire
where there was a situation where
eighteen runs required of nine balls for
the great minecraft dhoni was in strike
so the particular time that when
mahindra singh dhoni came on strike
out of the 30 balls he played he just
got one boundary that uniques
and that is the time the last two hours
it ball down do i took my walkie-talkie
to relay the information
for the bowling coach who’s standing in
closer to the place saying that dhoni
doesn’t play the lap shot at all
so please keep the fine leg in and dale
strain was calling
benstein had the fine leg back the stat
says dhoni has never played a lap shot
until then that’s what the stat banking
have got so based on the information
that gone
when the situation boils down to
eighteen of nine balls dale stead brings
the final again
and dhoni plays a lap shot that goes for
four
and the situation all of a sudden
becomes fourteen of eight and dhoni is
still there with eight balls to go
so what do you expect the result when a
king finisher like dhoni is at the scene
can you blame the data you can’t blame
that can you blame your analysis you
can’t blame the analysis but that’s how
sport is
so if you really feel it’s data that
really drives everything
that is what i want to tell you you need
to drive the data and not let the data
influence your analysis i’ve been part
of
indian hockey team i’ve been part of
tennis for a while
so when it goes to a team something like
a hockey it’s all
even based i’ll be sitting and talk
in front of the uh there’ll be a
particular place for people like us to
keep our cameras keep our laptops
connected
and then we’ll be seeing we’ll be having
we’ll be tagging the
game where the events are going on we’ll
be moving the camera with one of the
hands
and then we’ll be having the
walkie-talkie saying that the midfield
is open
we need to target there they’re changing
their combination they’re having this
many forwards and having this many
misfits
midfields this this guy is moving here
this guy is moving there so that is
completely even based
so that is not really we are not going
to talk about individual player you’re
going to talk about the particular
events here
how to penetrate the forward how are you
going to
attack their midfield how are you going
to break their defense
so those are the things you need to
really be careful of when it comes to
a penalty corner okay if i do a single
dummy there
if i do a double dummy there or if i do
a draft flick there
what is the percentage of success of the
goalkeeper opponent goalkeeper when you
draft flick
or you shoot straight or you shoot on
right corner body shoot on left corner
what is the initial movement what is he
going to do
so how are the guys going to approach
you or attack you or
defend the particular penalty corner so
when it comes to hockey it becomes
slightly
more database research because you talk
about
more as a even-based sport when it comes
to tennis
when i send my research on arousal
federer
he was he was he was a king on grass so
someone like roger federer when you try
and keep him six rallies
on a grass particularly the sixth rally
is going to come up with a booming
winner so when he comes with a booming
winner at that point of time
in 2007 71 percentage i mean
forced error you’re forcing him for
error
particularly when you try and approach
the net and try and force him to pass
so that is where you really force him in
error so these are the kind of things
when it comes to tennis it’s going to be
a man-to-man where the data drive is
going to be more
when roger federer is going to serve
1540
what is the type of serve most
percentage
whether it’s going to be flat sir
whether it’s going to be a kickstart
whether it’s going to be down the middle
or it’s going to target the right corner
whatever it is
what is the percentage then you tell
your opponent to make sure okay
when he’s 1540 don first serve what is
the percentage of him going for this
kind of a serve
second serve when the first serve is a
fault what is it going to do
so this becomes a completely data
mining scope when it comes to individual
sport
so all he got to know is to make sure
how are you going to
drive this so if you ever think that
completely the performance analysis is
data driven
i want to humbly beg to differ it’s not
completely data driven at
all so this is how we need to make sure
how are you going to get your data
influential based on the research what
you make
so that is how you make people believe
you
really make an influence of what you do
it’s all about
of use your intelligence how you
intelligently use your data
and make sure you can make a life out of
it so this is the inspiration i want to
give for people listening
to this talk and seriously think about
how to put your steps forward
and really make a career out of it and
really thank you people for giving me an
opportunity on a short burst of going
through my 18-year career
thanks a lot and wishing everyone who’s
watching this all the very best for your
future
thank you