An Indian Software Will now Judge the Umpire in Cricket...!

India's Unfortunate lost after being in a strong position in the last test match of ongoing India-Australia test series 2007-2008 creates a sign of sorrow among the people of India and among all cricket fans of India and this is due to some bad and poor umpiring, but Indian Software industry is now going to benefit from this bad decision of umpire as a string of software start-ups as well as the biggest outsourcing companies have developed solutions that can capture cricketing motions and analyse them real-time so that better decisions can be made if the umpire is inclined. At least, one software ranks cricket umpire on five grades of quality...
One of the leading Bangalore based Software company Swantha Software solution is on their way in developing a new Software which will track the performance of an umpire in a cricket match, it has been named as 3rdEYE which can aggregate all the data analysis at the end of a match and qualify the umpire’s performance as excellent, good, satisfactory, poor or bad, the judgement being made without human intervention
Sanjay Rao the co-founder of the company said that "Most of the times, the whole match depends upon the decisions of an umpire, like it happened in the recent India-Australia Test match. We can monitor these decisions using the 3rdEYE on a real time basis." he also said that "Using this software, we can judge how good the umpire is giving at decisions, especially during the crucial stages of the match"
It was used in the recent Karnataka-Mumbai Ranji Trophy encounter, where the local umpiring coach monitored the umpires’ performance and currently a demo has been given to the BCCI and if it is approved then we can expect that the standard of umpiring will surely increase when it will be used World wide..

Source : The Economics Times

Twenty20 World Cup 2007, South Africa From 11th September

The ICC Twenty20 World Championship is the international championship of Twenty20 cricket. The event is organised by the sport's governing body, the International Cricket Council (ICC) and is contested by all Test-playing nations (currently the only ten teams officially allowed to play the longest form and highest level of cricket), plus qualifiers.
The inaugural ICC Twenty20 Cricket World will be taking place in South Africa in September. The games will be staged across the country at three venues; Newlands in Cape Town, Kingsmead in Durban and Wanderers in Johannesburg. All grounds have been associated with the game of cricket for a long time and are sure to be perfect venues for this world-class event.
Each of the three venues will host nine games and the 12 participating nations will be split into four groups comprising three teams to play in a round-robin format. The teams taking part in the 14-day tournament will comprise of 10 Test playing nations as well as Scotland and Kenya who have qualified by reaching the final of the 2007 WCL Division One tournament.
The format of the games will be similar to the Cricket World Cup. There will be three groups of 4 which will be followed by a Super Eights section, before the Semi Finals and the Final.
There will be 2 days of warm up matches taking place before the main tournament gets underway on Tuesday 11 September.
To know more about the Rules, Record, Team squad and most important the Schedule and fixtures of the twenty20 world cup 2007 just click on the Read more... .

The Laws of cricket apply to Twenty20 with some exceptions:

* Should a bowler deliver a no ball by overstepping the popping crease, it costs 2 runs and his next delivery is designated a free-hit, from which the batsman can only be dismissed through a run out, for hitting the ball twice, obstructing the field or handling the ball, as is the case for the original "no ball".

* Bowlers may bowl a maximum of only 4 overs per innings.

* Umpires may award 5-run penalty runs at their discretion if they believe either team is wasting time.

* If the fielding team do not start to bowl their 20th over within 75 minutes, the batting side is credited an extra 6 runs for every whole over bowled after the 75 minute mark; the umpire may add more time to this, if he considers the batting team is wasting time.

* The following fielding restrictions apply:
o No more than 5 fielders can be on the leg side at any time.
o During the first 6 overs, a maximum of 2 fielders can be outside the 30-yard circle.
o After the first 6 overs, a maximum of 5 fielders can be outside the fielding circle.

* If the match ends with the scores tied and there must be a winner, the tie is broken with a bowl-out (similar to a penalty shoot-out in football), with 5 bowlers from each side delivering 2 balls each at an unguarded wicket. If the number of wickets is equal after the first 10 balls per side, the bowling continues and is decided by sudden death.

To know more about the teams that are playing in the twenty20 world cup and their current records just click here..

Each country declared their sqad for twenty20 world cup 2007 click here to know them
To know the complete schedule and fixtures of twenty20 World Cup 2007 click here ..

If Any body have any further updated information regarding this upcoming twenty20 World Cup 2007 , please share them here or leave a comment...

INDIAN CRICKET LEAGUE....

The Indian Cricket League (ICL) is a proposed private cricket league that will run parallel to the existing cricket league managed by Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). The format of ICL will be Twenty20.

On 3 April 2007, Zee Telefilms (part of Subhash Chandra promoted Essel Group) announced that it would be partner with infrastructure major IL&FS to create a new ambitious cricket league, Indian Cricket League (ICL). This league will have a prize money of $ 1 million for the winner. ICL was set up with a Rs. 100 crore (Rs. 1 billion) corpus, and would initially comprise six teams to be expanded to 16 in three years. This will make ICL the richest professional league in the country with an annual prize of $1 million (Rs. 4.4 crore).

ICL has already signed a number of major players but is yet to reveal their names. On July 24th, some great international names have been cropped up to join ICL
The ICL has confirmed that Brian Lara has signed up and will be joining the league.
New zeland skipper Stephen Fleming would also join ICL.
Former Pakistan skipper Inzamam-ul-Haq also expressed his desire to join the league
Deep Dasgupta, the former India wicketkeeper, feels that Bengal's cricketers do not get their recognition, so he also decided to join ICL
Click here to know more about the confirmed players who are joining ICL

Each team will be coached by a former India player and will comprise four international, two Indian and eight budding domestic players. Essel Group is also planning to set up cricket academies all over the country. BCCI has been assured that it is free to draw from ICL's talent pool. The league will be functional by July-August 2007 and will start with Twenty20 format matches in the run-up to the Twenty20 World Cup in September 2007.

Former international cricketers including Kapil Dev, Tony Greig, Dean Jones and Kiran More have been hired as board members of the Indian Cricket League. The board positions will be paid positions.
Read more From Wikipedia

BCCI's Response :
The BCCI refused to recognise ICL as a cricket league, and criticised Kiran More and Kapil Dev for joining ICL. Kapil Dev's association with ICL was seen as conflict of interest as he is the current chairman of National Cricket Academy, a BCCI owned cricket facility. As of August 21, 2007 Kapil Dev has been sacked from his NCA post. Subhash Chandra had earlier stated that the ICL will go ahead regardless of the BCCI stance.
Read More...