{"id":632806,"date":"2026-04-26T21:53:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/632806\/"},"modified":"2026-04-26T21:53:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T21:53:12","slug":"ai-decision-review-system-being-trialled-in-darwin-womens-division-one-cricket-competition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/632806\/","title":{"rendered":"AI decision review system being trialled in Darwin women’s division one cricket competition"},"content":{"rendered":"

Darwin’s premier women’s cricket league has become the first Australian grade competition to use an artificial intelligence (AI) umpire review system.<\/p>\n

During the opening rounds of the 2026 Darwin division one season, players have been able to challenge leg before wicket (LBW) decisions through the Fulltrack AI system.<\/p>\n

It operates via a high-resolution camera strapped to an umpire\u2019s chest, delivering a decision on whether the tracked delivery would have hit the stumps.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The technology is created by Fulltrack AI, which Arjun Verma co-founded. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)<\/p>\n

The system is being trialled for 12 months. It draws from recordings of around one million other balls bowled to calculate the approximate trajectory of the delivery.<\/p>\n

Fulltrack AI co-founder and chief executive Arjun Verma said the system used a mix of models to make a decision.<\/p>\n

“We [use] a 2D ball detection model [combined] with a physics model and use that to extract a full 3D ball track,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The technology is being trialled in the division one women’s competition. (Supplied: NT Cricket)<\/p>\n

Mr Verma said the ball-tracking wasn’t quite as accurate as the multi-camera systems used in international cricket and tennis, which triangulate the position of a ball using up to 16 cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But he said for a fraction of the cost, local leagues around the world were picking up the AI technology “to get rid of that grumpy Sunday cricketer”.<\/p>\n

“The average club cricketer is grumpier than you might think and thinks they’re not out more often than they actually are,” he said.<\/p>\n

“About 85 per cent of the time, even at the club level, we are reinforcing the umpire’s decision.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

There are two divisions of women’s cricket in Darwin. (Supplied: NT Cricket)<\/p>\n

Players keen to contest decisions<\/p>\n

Each women’s division one team will get two challenges per innings.<\/p>\n

Captain of PINT, Amy Yates, said even if there was a tiny chance of reversing a decision that denied her a wicket or gave her out, she would take it. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“As a batter, you only get one chance each week,” she said<\/p>\n

“If you can actually get a chance to review it, it’s going to go a long way, because cricket can be a harsh game.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Amy Yates believes the technology is worth trialling. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)<\/p>\n

Coach of PINT’s men’s side, Will Glover, said the data provided by the platform had been useful from a coaching perspective, and he believed it “wasn’t far off” being trialled in men’s games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was a little sceptical at first, how it would work in game settings, but the actual data we’ve received back [has] been awesome,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Being able to get really accurate pitch maps has been really beneficial for our bowling group, and also getting up close with our batters has been good.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Will Glover says the technology could be trialled in men’s cricket. (ABC News: Xavier Martin)<\/p>\n

NT looking to attract umpires<\/p>\n

All but one of the Top End women’s teams have agreed to participate in the trial, with Nightcliff Cricket Club opting out.<\/p>\n

“The trial required a significant financial commitment from the club that we ultimately deemed not to be the best use of club resources,” Nightcliff president Josh Smith said.<\/p>\n

NT Cricket’s head of clubs and competitions, Karl Mayne, said the trial aimed to eliminate perceptions of bias in games, some of which players and coaches had to umpire themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We thought trialling it in those games which were self-umpired would help provide some independence to decision making, and maybe quell some arguments and conflicts,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

NT Cricket is hoping the technology will lead to less arguments about decisions.<\/p>\n

Mr Mayne said having checks around decision-making might also attract new umpires to the game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I imagine there’s a fair subsection out in the community that might not be umpires because they’re afraid or apprehensive about making the wrong decision, so a tool like this can alleviate some of that,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Cricket Australia and interstate leagues are watching the trial with interest.<\/p>\n

Despite there being no plans to extend the trial to the men’s competition, club leagues in other states were watching the women’s trial with interest.<\/p>\n

“We’ve certainly had some people from Cricket Australia and other premier competitions to say ‘hey, this is interesting,” Mr Mayne said.<\/p>\n

“I think we’re ahead of the game, and there’ll be lots of eyes on what we do.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Darwin’s premier women’s cricket league has become the first Australian grade competition to use an artificial intelligence (AI)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[256,306456,306460,306458,306457,306454,64,63,306464,740,306455,306453,306463,306462,186294,1098,8247,588,85,306461,306459],"class_list":["post-632806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-ai","tag-ai-in-sport","tag-ai-software","tag-ai-trial","tag-ai-umpire-trial","tag-artificial-technology","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-ball-tracker","tag-cricket","tag-cricket-technology","tag-cricket-umpire","tag-full-track","tag-fulltrack","tag-new-technology","tag-nt","tag-software","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-umpire-decision","tag-umpire-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}