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Rahul Dravid hopes cricket can use AI and data analysis for injury prediction without losing the sport’s human element. He emphasizes maintaining the uniqueness of players like Jasprit Bumrah.
Rahul Dravid (PC: Instagram) and Jasprit Bumrah (PTI Photo).
Former India head coach Rahul Dravid hopes that cricket can use technologies like Artificial Intelligence and data analysis to aid in facets like injury prediction, without replacing the ‘human element’ in the sport. He explained it by saying that he wouldn’t want any technology that creates five ‘clones’ of pacer Jasprit Bumrah after his back injury because that would take away the ‘fun’ and ‘uniqueness’ of the sport.
Bumrah picked up a stress injury in his back in January during the 2024-25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He was advised weeks of rest and has only recently returned to the cricket field, though the injury did rule him out of the ongoing 2025 Champions Trophy in Pakistan and the UAE. Dravid was a big driving force of use of data analysis in the Indian men’s team in the 2023-24 season but still advises only moving forward with balance.
“Can we clone five Bumrahs or something? I mean, I’m just saying that, but that wouldn’t be fun either, right? I mean, what would be the fun in that, right? Where’s the uniqueness then?” Dravid said at a Mumbai event on Saturday, as quoted by news agency PTI.
“I think maybe leave sport alone for a bit and we don’t want to get AI too involved in sport. There’s got to be that human element to it. There’s got to be a level of uniqueness to sport. So, that would be my wish really that we’d never get to a point where we are… It becomes easy,” he said. “Bumrah is unique because it’s so hard to do what Bumrah does.”
Explaining what he hoped for AI to do, Dravid said: “On the sporting field, one of the things that you are really hopeful about what AI might be able to do, is (to predict) injuries.”
“You just look at the level of injuries that we have and no one really has a perfect answer as to why people pick up stress fractures and there is no one size fits all; I am just using a stress fracture for the back as an example for fast bowlers. You have seen over the last years so much of data, so much of sports medicine, science and stuff going into it but no one being able to really predict that, that’s sad, that’s (about) people’s careers, lives. So if AI can get us there and we will be able to predict injuries,” he added.
“In this day and age, you’ve got to be able to use all of this data and technology for your benefit. (But) you can’t become a slave of it, but certainly there are huge advantages to using artificial intelligence. You’ve got to find that balance between recognising that the data is important,” the batting stalwart said.
Dravid said that during his stint, he used to collect tons of data and information and filter only a fraction of important bits to the players, that too after judging the right time and moment for it.
