Black Caps pad up data-mining software

The Black Caps are turning to data-mining software to help them call the shots in one-day internationals.

New Zealand Cricket technology manager Peter Mayell says the SAS Enterprise Miner software draws on scoring data from 350 one-day internationals played in the past five seasons and can predict the likely outcome of a game.

"It's basic scoring data off each delivery like how many runs were scored. It's mainly used for educational purposes and analysing to improve the game but we're heading towards making decisions in real-time to pass on to captains and players."

He says cricketers can be resistant to making decisions based on the model generated by the software because it doesn't always agree with their gut instincts.

The software did not predict last week's nail-biting tie in Napier.

"It's fair to say the model did not quite stack up with what actually happened in the last few overs, but that happens in the heat of battle and the pressure of being out in the middle."

NZ Cricket is looking to extend the software to the Twenty20 and test versions of the game and plans to factor in more variables such as humidity.

"The Black Caps are well known for the lower to middle order getting a lot of runs, which is different from teams around the world. We can allow for that in our models."

Dr Mayell says NZ Cricket has spent about $250,000 on the project over three years and Sport and Recreation NZ has helped with funding.

Wellington business consultancy Offlode advised on the project and collated the original data.

SAS Institute is a business intelligence software company.

- © Fairfax NZ News