Sports Technology

Cricket Australia has revealed it is in the early stages of trialling state-of-the-art sensor technology to help understand the impact of head knocks with reports suggesting players in Australia could be wearing concussion sensors in their helmets as early as next summer.

Cricket Australia Sports Science and Medicine Manager Alex Kountouris advised “we've put a high priority on understanding concussion, like most other sporting organisations in the last three to four years are doing same thing, and sensors are one of those.”

Already being trialled in the NFL in North America, sSensors are placed inside a player's helmet that rank the level of impact on hits to the helmet.

That ranking is relayed to a handheld device that is in the hands of coach or trainer, who can determine whether or not the player needs to undergo concussion testing.

Kountouris stated “once we understand the technology better and have confidence then we'll look to introduce it and trial it in games.

"It won't happen this summer it's more likely to happen in the next 12 months."

Australia Coach Darren Lehmann says he would happily support the introduction of the sensor technology.

Lehmann told the ABC “anything that helps the safety of the players I'm all for," he said.

Cricket Australia is trailing a substitution rule for this season's Big Bash and domestic one-day games that could enable concussed players to be replaced.

However, the International Cricket Council (ICC) is yet to change the guidelines that govern first-class matches.

Kountouris stated "cricket is a sport that doesn't have substitutes, so it is a massive cultural change and a big change for the game to allow that and we understand that.

"We're realistic about the complexity of it. The game's been around for over 100 years and didn't have substitutes, so for us to get it in and trial it is a big thing."

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