If you have been watching the World T20 on television you would have noticed the stumps lighting up each time the ball crashes against it or the wicket keeper whips the bails off. That’s because of LED technology, a new innovation in cricket.
Bronte EcKermann, the inventor of LED stumps, has said he would not mind giving Mahendra Singh Dhoni one as a souvenir if India, which has made it to the semi-finals, wins the ongoing ICC tournament.
‘Well, this is a very costly system. The entire set-up during a match costs Rs 25 lakh approx, While the new innovation is providing television viewers and spectators an enhanced experience and getting them more involved, here are ten things you must know about the LED stumps:
- The innovation was conceived by Bronte EcKermann, an Australian mechanical industrial designer, and created by South Australian manufacturer Zing International. It is called the Zing Wicket System.
- It was first tried out in a club game in Adelaide. Once Cricket Australia was convinced about using it instead of the wooden stumps for night matches, it was decided that it would be used in the 2012 edition of the Big Bash League in Australia.
- The technology was introduces with after three years of intense research.
The International Cricket Council used it for the first time during the semi-finals and final of the recent Under-19 Cricket World Cup in the UAE.
Besides the ICC under-19 World Cup, the stumps have been used in T20 competitions in New Zealand, Australia and the West Indies. India could see the use of LED stumps and bails in the upcoming seventh edition of the Indian Premier League.
4. With conventional bails, it is difficult for the umpire to tell when the bail is ‘completely dislodged’. A bail is only ‘completely dislodged’ from a wicket when both spigots have separated from their stump grooves.
- Low voltage batteries are incorporate in each of the bails and stumps.
- The wicket come fitted with LED. The bails also have an in-built sensor than can determine if a wicket is broken in just 1\1000th of second.
- They are made of composite plastic and the LEDS glimmer at the slightest impact with ball.
- The stump and bails illuminate with dislodged, when the wicket is broken the bails flash bright red LED light.
- If a wicket keeper makes a stumping, the light flash. It help the umpires to come up with correct decision especially during close stumping and runout.
- Each bail cost as much as an iPhone.