SLPL at the Halfway Stage

Inaugural SLPL is now in it's halfway stage. 15 matches out of total 24 matches have been completed and two teams have almost been knocked out (there is a slight chance for Basnahira and Uthura to qualify, given that a combination of results go in their favour, which is highly unlikely ) and one team have already qualified to the semi finals.Other four teams are playing for the three slots available in the knockouts. Here are some of my opinions on the SLPL so far.

• The attendance for the matches were very low. The matches played at the RPS Colombo were the least attended matches. This has been one of the major criticism of the SLPL. As I get to know the price of the tickets are not high and a lot of tickets are distributed freely. But it should be noted that unlike in India the available market is very low. After all we don't have a population of 1.2 billion as in India. Even Mumbai have a population of 12 million which is more than a half of Sri Lanka's entire population. So it is somewhat unfair to expect a good attendance for SLPL as in IPL.

• However I think if matches are played on different venues the attendance can be increased. Galle and Dambulla would have been good revenue generators. Probably for the next edition of SLPL they should have some matches at those venues. 

• The teams are named according to provinces in Sri Lanka. But being a small country divisions based on provinces is not that evident as in India. As the matches are just played in Colombo and Kandy there is no fan base for these teams from their respective provinces. I think this is also a reason for the low attendance in matches. Also the players in those teams do not belong to the respective provinces. It's funny that Sanath Jayasuriya being an icon from Matara playing for Kandurata. Also the names given to teams are very annoying. After all I am still wondering about the meaning of word "Dundee" ???

• Currently Sri Lanka is facing a power crisis due to droughts and the breakdown of the Norochcholai power plant. Most of us experience a power cut of three and a half hours each day. But most of the matches are played under floodlights. With the low number of attendance and the current situation in the country , flood lit domestic matches are the last thing we want.  

• The major motivation for organizing this tournament was the profit. SLC was desperate for money especially after going bankrupt. After the successful audition of the team-franchises it was evident that this has the potential to become financially successful. But we must not forget that Sri Lanka manged to incur a huge loss from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, while all other hosting countries made huge profits. Thus I am not surprised if I get to know that SLC incur a huge loss from this SLPL. 

• Anyway I think this is a great opportunity for Sri Lankan players. Senior players can make this a chance to prepare for the T20 world cup next month. Also this will be a great opportunity for young players  to show their talents and make a name for themselves. I sincerely hope that at least few players will make their way in to the national side through this series. 

A Simple Card Trick

This is a simple card trick and it's correctness can be easily shown using the Pigeon-Hole principle.For details about Pigeon-Hole Principle visit http://shashindrasri.blogspot.com/2011/11/pigeon-hole-principle.html.

Card Trick based on Pigeon hole principle from Shashindra Silva

It's Left Handers Day - some facts about left handers

Today (August 13) is International Left Handers day. Here are some interesting facts about left handers.

A Great Place for Free Online Learning - Coursera

Coursera is a great place for online learning. This has subjects varying from Computer Science to History , Sociology, Medicine and Music. All the subjects are offered from the top ranked Universities in the world. Currently there are 16 Universities affiliated with Coursera and this includes MIT, CIT , Stanford University and Princeton University.

Some available courses 

The courses offered are well organized. Around 5-12 hours per week are required to complete a course and the duration of the course will be 6-16 weeks. Almost all the courses includes weekly lectures which have a duration of around 10-20 minutes. There will be several lectures per week adding up to 2 hours per week. Also there may be weekly quizzes, assignments or programming assignment depending on the course. Quizzes will either MCQ or short answers which will be evaluated automatically. Assignments are normally peer reviewed. Also most of the courses have an end exam and mid exams.After the completion of the course participants will receive a certificate if they have performed well in exams and assignments. But this certificate will not be considered as an official certificate offered by the relevant University.

Coursera is started by Andrew Ng, an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab and Daphne Koller a Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Stanford University . Although this was started in this year it has many partners. Currently all the courses are free and the business model is not finalized. It is expected that it will be something about selling the information about participants to potential employees and offering of certificates.

Currently Coursera offers more than 100 different subjects. The number of enrollments per subject some times exceeds 100k. These courses will give a very good chance to learn some thing new in a very organized manner. The quality of the courses are very high and it is very good chance to experience the future of e-learning. This will be a very good opportunity to gather international quality knowledge freely.Visit the Coursera web site from the following link.


https://www.coursera.org/

Hotspot Technology

One of the main technology used in Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) in cricket is the Hawk-Eye technology which tracks and predicts the path of the ball. Other main technology which is not mandatory under current cricketing laws is the Hot Spot technology. Hot Spot is the best available technology to establish the contact between the ball and the bat or pad.

History

Australia's Nine Networks owns this technology

Interestingly hot-spot technology was not intended to be used in cricket initially. It was expected to be used in military applications. These includes tracking jet-fighters,warships, tanks and satellites.This technology was founded by french scientist Nicholas Bion and later developed by other companies in paris. The Australian Nine Networks bought and adopted this technology. This technology is now offered by BBG Sports,an Australian company responsible for Snickometer in conjunction with Sky Sports.This technology was first used in the first ashes test match at the Gabba on 23 November 2006. The first usage of Hot Spot in the decision making process in cricket was in 2009 in South Africa.

Technology

Hot Spot uses infra-red cameras to capture images. There will be either two or four cameras at each ends of the ground. These cameras sense and measure the heat.When a collision happens either between bat and ball,bat and pad,pad and ball or ground and ball the temperature of those areas will be increased.Thus collided areas will be shown with a different color.

Advantages

Hot Spot has considerable advantages than other technologies used in Decision Review System.Hawk Eye is only used to predict the path of the ball.The only other technology available to detect collisions with the bat or pad is Snickometer or a very slow motion camera replay. But it only gives an idea about the time the collision happened and its amplitude. Thus no information about the point of contact can be obtained from Snickometer. But Hot Spot cameras gives the exact point of contact of the ball with the bat or pad. Thus Hot Spot is the best available technology to detect whether the ball hit the bat or the pad.

Disadvantages

The main disadvantage of this technology is its high cost. The cost of two camera set up is around 5000$ per day for two cameras. So if four cameras are used for a test match total price add up to 50000$. This is a huge amount of money and if we consider the limitation of number of reviews per innings for a team (which is currently two incorrect reviews) this cost can not be justified. Even when hawk-eye and other technologies were available at a much lower price some cricket boards still can not afford them due to financial reasons.

Also the number of Hot Spot cameras available are limited. These cameras are classified as a military device and needs a temporary export license from Australian Defense Department when used in another country. Also there are other government regulations that need to be satisfied.
Due to above reasons the usage of Hot Spot in Umpire Decision Review System is not mandatory.This technology was not used even in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.

Controversies

Although the inventors of Hot Spot claims very high accuracy, some of the decisions involving this technology have been controversial. There have been instances where Snickometer and other technologies confirms that there is a nick but ultimately Hot Spot did not show any evidence. Also during a test match between India and England there was a confident appeal for a caught behind. Although replays suggests that there may be some bat involved Hot Spot technology failed show any edges. Later Michael Vaughan tweeted that Laxman may have used Vaseline in his bat thus making it impossible to detect edges using Hot Spot technology.

Due to this criticism the inventors of hot spot technology carried out more tests on the reliability of the technology and now they have improved there technology and thus the accuracy of the system. Also they have proved that applying Vaseline or any other substance on the bat can not manipulate this technology. 

With new improvements this technology will be very useful for a fair game of cricket.But the problems with the cost and the unavailability of the devices have limited the usage of this in most cricket matches. Unless the price of this technology is reduced and the number of cameras available are increased this will not be part of the mandatory technologies needed in Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS).

VJD System - Alternative to the Duckworth-Lewis Method

Although the Duckworth-Lewis method is widely used in international and first class level there are many criticisms about this method.One of the main criticism about the DL method is that it gives a higher weight to number of wickets remaining rather than number of overs left. As an example DL par score jumped from 117 to 140 at the end of 20 overs when West Indies lose there 4th wicket in the 20th over at the recently concluded first ODI match between England and West Indies.WI were 1 run ahead before the wicket and suddenly 23 runs behind the target after the wicket.Thus it is very important to a chasing side, not to lose wickets rather than maintaining the required run rate.


Another problem with the DL method is it's inability to handle the power play overs.There is no way to account for the number of power play overs left and number of power play overs played. Also since it uses a G50 score concept where the average score was considered as 250 for an ODI match ,the target scores obtained by DL method was not very justifiable for very low scores and and for very high scores. Thus the effectiveness of the Duckworth-Lewis method is limited to a range of scores distributed around 250. Although this error was corrected for a certain extent in the professional edition still the Duckworth-Lewis method is not that accurate in lower scores and higher scores.

Duckworth-Lewis Curves

Also when multiple interruptions happens the targets given by the Duckworth-Lewis have many anomalies.  The target given by the Duckworth-Lewis method when the interruption happens during an innings break clearly favors the chasing side if the first innings score is high.This is because they have all the ten wickets in hand at the start and the number of overs are reduced. Due to this fact these days captains choose to field when they win the toss if rain is expected during the match.


Also Duckworth-Lewis method was originally designed for ODI matches. Thus when this was used in T20 matches it gives inefficient and unfair results. This may be because the lack of data to construct the resource curves for T20matches. In-fact the unsuitability of the Duckworth-Lewis method in T20 is the main criticism against it.

V. Jayadevan

Thus the need of a new system to be used in rain affected matches have been raised. The main competitor that has challenged the Duckworth-Lewis method is V. Jayadevan method which is used in Indian domestic matches. This is widely known as VJD method.


The designer of this method V. Jayadevan is currently working as an Engineer, Irrigation Department, Kerala. He has spent fifteen years to develop VJD system which is used for calculating revised target due to interruptions in ODI & T20 cricket matches, as an alternative to the existing D/L system.




Previous posts on Duckworth-Lewis method.

1. Duckworth-Lewis Method (part 1)
2. Duckworth-Lewis Method (part 2)
3. Duckworth-Lewis Method (part 3)

Transit of Venus

The last Venus transit for this century will be visible to Sri Lanka Tomorrow (June 6th). This will be a great opportunity to us.Following details may help to observe the transit safely and correctly.

Viewing Safely

It is very important to use the safety procedures while observing the transit.Inappropriate viewing methods may result in blindness and other eye problems. Following link contains some safe viewing methods.

http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2012/transit/viewing.php

http://www.transitofvenus.org/june2012/eye-safety

 

Useful Links

• NASA - http://sunearthday.nasa.gov/2012/transit/index.php

• Transit of Venus - http://www.transitofvenus.org/

• Wikipeadia -  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit_of_Venus,_2012

• Webcasts -  http://www.livescience.com/20747-venus-transit-webcasts-watch-live.html