IIT Madras, ESPN's AI tool 'Superstats' to enhance IPL experience

Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) and ESPNcricinfo's artificial intelligence  (AI) tool 'Superstats' is once again enhancing the fans experience of the Indian Premier League (IPL) matches, the company said on Monday.

This data science-driven tool offers three major metrics of forecaster, luck index and smart stats that would cover all aspects of the match for fans coverage - pre-game, in-game and post-game.

Developed in 2019 through a collaboration between ESPNcricinfo, IIT Madras and Gyan Data Pvt. Ltd - an IIT Madras-incubated company, the tool is a suite of metrics that helps fans judge performances in limited-overs cricket in a far more nuanced manner than conventional metrics do.

"Superstats was a significant part of ESPNcricinfo's stats coverage of IPL 2019 and will be a key ingredient of the 2020 plan as well," S Rajesh, Stats Editor, ESPNcricinfo, said in a statement.

The research team working with cricket experts from ESPNcricinfo derived super stats from ESPNcricinfo's database and scientific methods, processes and complex algorithms based on machine learning.

The algorithms process accurate, fast data, quantify the impact of luck and analyses the real value of a player's performance in the game of cricket in real-time.

Superstats takes into account the context of every performance, batting and bowling. Context includes pitch conditions, quality of opposition and match situation - in terms of the pressure on the player.

The 'Forecaster' predicts the final score of an ongoing innings and the win probabilities of teams using statistical and machine learning models.

The 'Luck Index' is a first-of-its-kind concept in cricket analytics that quantifies the impact of lucky events (such as dropped catches and umpiring errors, among others) on the final score and match result.

The 'Smart Stats' is a set of three novel metrics - Smart Runs, Smart Wickets, and Impact Score - that factor in the pressure on a player and opposition quality for evaluating batting and bowling performances.

"The use of data science driven tools in sports have helped us to offer a much more enriching content experience to our discerning fans and cricket enthusiasts," said Ramesh Kumar, Vice President and Head, ESPN (India and South Asia).