University of Technology Sydney and Cricket NSW join forces in strategic partnership to benefit local and international cricket communities

SYDNEY, Dec. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- The University of Technology Sydney (UTS) is collaborating with Cricket NSW (CNSW) to launch The Cricket Lab, a partnership aimed at creating innovative research and exploring new possibilities for both cricket and UTS.

"This collaboration, which applies UTS's expertise to the challenges facing the cricket community, aligns with the university's mission to solve real world problems for the public benefit," says Professor Glenn Wightwick, UTS Deputy Vice Chancellor of Enterprise.

The five-year strategic collaboration is expected to deliver local and global impact. It will engage research, education and innovation across elite performance, pre-elite and community cricket. 

"From using biomechanics identifying factors associated with performance and injury risk, to finding ways sport science and technology can make school, community and professional sport safer, this partnership will ultimately develop evidence-based methods for improving the health of our athletes," said Distinguished Professor Aaron Coutts from the UTS School of Sport, Exercise and Rehabilitation.

Cricket NSW CEO Lee Germon said the benefits of the collaboration would have a big impact on the future of cricket.

"Some of the work will help us in our goal of doubling the number of 5-12 year olds playing cricket, but there will be other areas like the 130 Project or the strengthening of our support networks for Pathways and Premier Cricket that could have far-reaching effects on the success of not only our teams, but Australian cricket as well."

The partnership builds on UTS's existing relationship with CNSW. The UTS Data Science Institute (DSI) has been working closely with CNSW to analyse the journey of cricketers through school, club and representative cricket by using machine learning and clustering techniques.

 "The Data Science Institute is looking forward to exploring exciting new ways to deliver cutting-edge artificial intelligence for the NSW cricket community," said Associate Professor Adam Berry, Deputy Director of UTS DSI.

The University of Technology Sydney is a leading university of technology, ranked #1 in Australia for Computer Science, Engineering and AI Research. Learn more about the university's impact globally at discover.uts.edu.au.