All kinds of wearable tech are out there on the market, but one recent innovation serves a very specific and globally popular sport.
CricFlex, created by a group of five Pakistani engineers, is an arm sleeve that cricket players can use to train and evaluate their bowling angle, and also to determine if the angle is legal or illegal. An angle greater than 15 degrees is illegal.
The sleeve automatically picks up a cricketer’s illegal bowling move and transmits the results to a smartphone app that cricketers can use to see various metrics — arm force, action time and spin rate — and improve their performance accordingly. The app helps cricketers visualize the data. So far, the invention has earned a U.S. patent and the blessing of a top biomechanist, according to ESPN CricInfo. As of the end of January, CricFlex was still awaiting validation from tests in a lab setting.
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The innovative wearable for cricketers began as a project for several students at an engineering university in Islamabad, Pakistan. Abdullah Ahmed, Muhammad Jazib Khan and Muhammad Asawal came up with the idea, according to CricInfo, after a crackdown by the International Cricket Council resulted in the banning of popular Pakistani cricketer Saeed Ajmal. Ahmed told ESPN CricInfo last month the sleeve costs around $250 to $300, much cheaper than the alternative: sending a cricketer for biomechanics testing.
“The main purpose for us creating (it) was to make it accessible at the grassroot level to the clubs and academics,” Ahmed said in the video. “The ultimate goal is to actually implement it within the matches.”
Ahmed and his team, now comprised of five people, want first to get the technology in the door at cricket clubs and academies, and then to eventually have CricFlex be used in exhibition matches. In January, the idea won a first-place prize worth 1 million Pakistani rupees at a national start-up competition.
CricFlex_Product Video from Abdullah Ahmed on Vimeo.