We all know rugby has used technology for tries, cricket for run outs and now a more enhanced system, and more recently tennis with hawkeye. What is more frustrating is that cricket now uses technology which is miles in advance of just a TV camera. Hot spot shows up the smallest of touches on the edge of the bat while hawkeye tracks the predicted route of the ball, snicko uses noises to determined what the ball has hit. What do you need to make goal line technology work in football? A camera. That's all goal line technology is, a camera that can see whether the ball is over the line or not. Not something that is a heat camera, not something that predicts the travel of the ball. It's something as a viewer we can see in an instant, we know within seconds what the right decision is yet the game goes on. Yet FIFA has lagged behind these other sports in moving with the times. Cricket and tennis are regarded as 'classic' games, ones which are steeped in history yet they have adapted to the technology quicker than one which has the disposal of billions of pounds and a game which is global.
It's so much of a basic incompetence that I am going to leave it there, I'm sure you agree with me, it's just taken Sepp Blatter much longer than anyone else to think what everyone else is thinking, maybe next he'll wonder about how we are going to have a World Cup in 50 degree heat in Qatar? Unlikely.
What I am really interested in is how technology is actually changing the way the game is played. Technology has improved the standard of the game, it's changed the way people practice and it's changed the way people approach a game. While it has been a long time since cricketers will have had a few beers before a game, the detailed and meticulous planning before a game is enhancing the sport, and it's all thanks to technology.
Hawkeye keeps precise measurements of where players intercept the ball, where the bowler is landing the ball, how often he is landing it in each place and so on. If a player keeps getting out to the short ball, it will all show up on hawkeye. If one batsman is struggling with the swinging ball and one is doing ok, a look at where the player is playing the ball from (how far down the pitch) might give an indication of how better to play a swinging ball.Equally I saw this week at Wimbledon, hawkeye can track where a player spends most of his time on court. If he spends most of his time at the base line it shows up red, and less frequently covered areas in yellow. I'm not a huge tennis fan but surely this sort of information will affect how you plan to beat an opponent, and if you know that your opponent is going target you in a certain way, you can improve that part of your game.
The review system in cricket (using technology to arrive at the correct decision) has also meant that spinners have now got more of a chance in the game, batsmen are having to come up with new ways of combating the finger spinner. Greame Swann's emergence as a world class spinner has been aided by the amount of LBW's he can get because umpires now see the amount of balls that are hitting the stumps. It's changed the game for the better, and has become a more interesting game because of technology.
I wont bore you with loads of examples of how it's changing the game, but it is, whichever sport. Technology has brought something new to the viewer, but deeper than that, it's improving the standards of the sports we watch and providing more compelling viewing.
