Artificial Intelligence (A-I) & Cricket

May 03, 2025 Sports

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Crofty’s Cricket Call

By: Colin Croft – Former Guyana, Lancashire CCC & West Indies International Cricketer

Kaieteur Sports- “Intelligence” and “cricket,” used together in the same sentence, is an obvious “oxymoron”!  For those younger than 35 who do not know what dictionaries are, or those over 35 who do not know where their dictionaries are, here, from my formative years, are two “oxymorons”.

Regularly said to me by ‘Old Sylvie’, which many of my age group heard too: “Bhoy, yuh know dat I only beatin yuh for yuh own good.  Dis is huttin me more dan um is huttin yuh!”    Another oxymoron from her: “I mek yuh, so I kud kill yuh!”  Yeah!  Right!  She regularly tried!

If my mother, with her aggression, had been a 2025 parent, with present rules of child-raising, she, and many of her generation, would have gone to jail every month for child abuse!

“Oxymoron”, in Oxford English and Marion-Webster dictionaries, is “a figure of speech in which contradictory terms appear in conjunction.”  As a former Teacher, I note that only God can help you if you also do not know the meanings of ‘contradictory’ and ‘conjunction.’

Cricket and intelligence, used together, diverge as much as ‘like poles’ of similar magnets, (positive to positive; negative to negative), ala high school Physics.  They repel each other with equal strengths but in opposite directions.  Like the robots that we have all, in some way, become, we accept “whatever”, when one notes cricket in the 2020s.    Life goes on!

International cricket umpiring in the 2020s!

Have you noticed where umpires, in present international cricket, stand when they are at square-leg?  No longer do they stand, as in my playing days, at actual square leg, along that ‘popping-crease’ line extension.  They stand at varying angles thereof.  It seems that by decree, decisions for stumpings, runouts and no-balls are sent “upstairs” to Third Umpires.  LBW (Leg Before Wicket) and catches are similarly referred by batsmen and captains.

“Artificial Intelligence” (A–I) has us confused and convinced.  Even when we know what we have heard or seen, we do not believe it anymore.  If this is so, why are umpires out there on the field?  Just to count six legal deliveries?

Even present online reference dictionary / encyclopedia, “Wikipedia”, with its past entries being mostly human, has complained about “Bots” taking over, as has been so with cricket!

Apollo 11, Eagle & the moon!

We were told; some claimed that they even saw it; that, on Sunday 20 July 1969, when I was 16 years old, American Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, landed on the moon, our closest celestial body, 240,000 miles (386,000 km) away.

Supposedly, they landed on the ‘Sea of Tranquility’, in lunar landing module “Eagle”, powered via space-ship Apollo 11.  Everyone remembers where they were when Neil Armstrong said: “Houston, Tranquility Base here.  The Eagle has landed!”  They then ‘walked on the moon’!

Right now, millions around the world still seriously believe that 1969’s moon landing, and all afterwards, to the last supposed moon mission – Apollo 17, NASA’s last Apollo mission, on 07 December 1972, featuring American Astronauts Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt – never happened.  Many, to this day, believe that those landings had been ‘A-I’ generated!

There are lingering questions.  (a) If those “landings on the moon” happened, assisted by extremely large, rudimentary computers which took up the space of a small house, in 1960s, then how come, with all of our present, unbelievably advanced technology and minimalization, (2025’s Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition Lap-Top computer has more computerization than those massive 1960s computers), no one has gone back to the moon since 1972?  (b) Why has there been so much struggle, and deaths, with much more mechanization available now, to get back to the moon? (c) Did they lie to us in 1969?

Cricket’s A-I

In 1998, during Test No. 5, West Indies v England, at Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados, I had an exciting conversation with my friend, South African Umpire Cyril Mitchley, one of the most jovial personalities to ever adjudicate our wonderful game.

He vociferously maintained: “Crofty, umpires will always be needed in cricket.”  My technological mind countered: “If, as noted, the ‘Eagle’ from Apollo 11, after travelling in space for 4 days, 6 hours and 45 minutes, covering 240,000 miles, landed in the Sea of Tranquility, on our moon, in 1969, with such precision, due to “A-I”, to be only 4 miles (6.5 km), from the exact planned point of landing, then why can we not do away with all umpires, since the length of a cricket pitch is only 20.12 meters (22 feet)?  For such an extremely short distance, our accuracy must be even more on point.”  His laughter was heard everywhere!

Robotic International Umpiring

International cricket’s umpiring has become farcical.  No umpire wants to make active, instant decisions anymore, not with 25 + television cameras around.  Fear of disqualification is the key.  “They are so scared of losing their jobs, they have forgotten how to do their jobs!”

Better to have “A-I”, (DRS – Decision Review System), make computer-generated decisions than to have humans make human mistakes.  This is cricket’s evolution.

“A-I” has existed for 75 + years; before World War II (1939-1945).  The very highly technologically advanced German scientists made V-1 and V-2 flying rocket-bombs, powered and controlled by “A-I”.  Quite ironically, some of those same German scientists also engineered the Saturn V rocket which blasted American Astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins and Edwin Aldrin into space on Apollo 11 in 1969.

A-I in films – Warnings!

This almost absolute dependence on “A-I”, in sports and in life, could backfire.  Be directed to the magnificent 1983 film “War Games”, very pertinent to our time now, starring Ally Sheedy and Matthew Broderick.  Still being shown regularly nowadays on HBO etc., it shows, frighteningly, what could happen when “A-I” goes wrong.  Check it out.

Very scary, 1979’s brilliant “The China Syndrome”, with Hollywood doyens Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon and Michael Douglas, is another film long before its right time. The Chernobyl Disaster – Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, 1986 – was our life imitating art!  Check that out too!

Having television cameras everywhere has been good for the visage of cricket.  For technology to totally remove and replace umpires, as human and error prone as umpires are, could not be good for the game.  That removal could backfire too.  Cheers.  Enjoy!

 

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