A new technology demonstrator, designed and developed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), is set to change the game of cricket. Gert Wessels and Matt Vassard, two of the researchers working on the project, envisage Optiplay Cricket becoming a must-have in every coach's arsenal.

The analysis application, which records all delivery specific data and video footage of a game, will enable teams, coaches and match analysts to track, manage and analyse matches objectively and assist in planning strategy to plot the demise of opponents. The product has its roots in a similar product called Crickstat, developed by the CSIR with former Proteas coach, the late Bob Woolmer. Crickstat is currently used by many domestic and international teams, but Optiplay Cricket is technologically far more advanced than its predecessor.

"This is a very objective analysis too" says Vassard. "With this application, coaches will be able to scrutinise every little detail of the game. However, one must remember that the software simply provides an enabling tool and the responsibility to conceive game strategies remains that of a coach," says Vassard.

Vassard is a software developer at the CSIR Consulting and Analytical Services while Wessels is with the CSIR Modelling and Digital Sciences. The project is a collaboration between the two units.

Because of its unique use of Microsoft technologies, the CSIR was invited by Microsoft South Africa to demonstrate Optiplay Cricket at their DevDays 2010 developer conferences around the country. "Microsoft wanted to use this as a demonstrator for its technologies, and we felt honoured by that invitation. The feedback from the software community was very positive." says Vassard who added, ¿This application is cutting-edge in that it is built and based on Microsoft¿s latest and most advanced technologies.¿

The CSIR Software Product Management unit will be marketing the new application to its existing customers and hopes to expand the customer base globally.

Optiplay Cricket exploits a technology framework developed by the CSIR, which aims to assist research units in their commercial endeavours.

The technology uses Microsoft.Net as a foundation, a middleware created by Microsoft to be platform-independent. Simply put, it can be run on any modern Microsoft operating system. "What we want to do is package common functionality into simpler, more generic components for reuse in new CSIR software applications," says Wessels.

The researchers hope that this approach will benefit future CSIR projects. Wessels says, "We are trying to funnel knowledge generated by the research units into user-friendly software applications. If this succeeds, it will take the burden of software development away from engineers and scientists, allowing them to focus on their research objectives," he says and adds, "Having an internal development capability, we believe that it will get software developers more in tune with what engineers and scientists want."

Wessels says that in South Africa, development houses are oriented towards business and financial systems. "Few focus on developing specialised scientific software applications and that is why we want to create this reusable software platform," he concludes. Regards