Accenture's Bangalore engineers have created a compelling experience for fans of Cricket Australia
From Anand Parthasarathy
Bangalore, October 16 2018: At an India Innovation Summit in Bangalore, a few weeks ago, engineers of Accenture's India Innovation Hub displayed an innovation in Extended Reality -- Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality, morphed with other immersive technologies. Wearing a VR headset and holding a specially instrumented cricket bat ( in photo) , I suddenly found myself at the crease in the middle of a packed and cheering stadium.
The operator with a tablet PC could conjure up just any kind of bowler -- inswinger, googly, you name it. I was soon floored by the exact ball as bowled by the world's best players.
Accenture's India team had created the system for Cricket Australia, who are using it at experience zones on the sidelines of important matches to woo crowds and build up a fan base.
But there is a serious side to this too. If the world's greatest bowlers agree to have their action captured in a 3-D motion capture studio, the resulting library of bowling could be used to train a new generation of batspersons -- who have 'virtually' played a Jaspreet Bumrah or a James Faulkner, long before facing them in the flesh.