Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association (MPCA) is all set to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) in many important processes from player selection to financial management. Senior MPCA officials announced on Friday that under this new system, AI will analyze the players’ performance and give suggestions to the selectors, although the final decision will always rest with the selection committee. Speaking to reporters in Indore, MPCA President Mahanaryaman Scindia said, “We want to eliminate any kind of discrimination in the process of selecting players. The AI will make suggestions for the team based on the performance data of the players, while the selectors will take the final decision.”
According to MPCA, the AI system will deeply analyze players’ runs, wickets and other performance-related data to give suggestions to the selectors. If a player is selected or excluded on any basis other than AI performance analysis, the selectors will have to explain the reasons for doing so. The aim of this step is to make the entire selection process more transparent and accountable than before.
MPCA made it clear that the use of AI will not be limited to just the selection of players; This technology will also be used in grant application processing, document verification, expenditure monitoring and financial management of district and divisional cricket units. The MPCA President said that the AI system has already been tested during the Madhya Pradesh League (MPL) T20 tournament. There are now plans to roll it out to district and divisional units ahead of the new domestic cricket season starting in September.
Mahanaryaman Scindia claims that MPCA could become the first cricket association in the world to implement AI-based system at this level of sports administration. For this project, MPCA has partnered with AI startup ‘Emergent’. Company CEO Mukund said that his team has been working for the last six months to bring the different administrative processes of MPCA on a single digital platform. Mukund said, “The objective of our partnership is to digitize the entire process of sports administration, which will increase transparency. We want to take this AI system to the global level.”