New Zealand Cricket has taken the first steps to establish both on-line scoring and a database of cricket fans and players, with the selection of Wellington-based cricket technology company CricHQ to lead the project.
The technology improvements, which will be up and running from later this year, include the provision of on-line scoring of cricket matches utilising iPads, laptops, tablets and mobile phones as well as the management of cricket competitions at club level across the country.
The first phase of the project will see clubs based at all six Major Associations and 22 District Associations throughout New Zealand able to administer their live match scoring, competition scheduling, point tables, statistics, and player and fan databases on-line via the CricHQ platform.
NZC Chief Operating Officer Craig Presland said the partnership between NZC and CricHQ was great news for everyone involved in cricket around the country.
“CricHQ is going to make the administration, scheduling and analysis of games at all levels much easier for everyone from club managers and administrators, coaches, umpires and scorers, through to players and their families and supporters. As well as this we will be able to communicate directly with those players and fans who choose to register in our database”.
Presland said the technology solution that Simon Baker and the team at CricHQ presented would be a big improvement on the traditional paper score books.
“After each match electronic score sheets will be able to be sent to the relevant administrators, then collated with other team results, points tables updated, and player aggregates and averages re-calculated. The competitions management component will also lead to improved communication in relation to match scheduling.”
CricHQ Chief Executive Simon Baker said the project was a major milestone for the company best-known domestically for its popular smart phone and tablet cricket scoring application.
“Aside from our App and some household name cricket player investors, we’ve been flying under the radar here in New Zealand. We’ve got some big partnerships in place overseas around competition management and player databases and now we are stoked to be working with NZC in our own backyard now too.”
Mr Baker said the CricHQ platform could in future provide NZC and the Kiwi cricketing community with loads of functions and tools that had previously only been accessible to elite cricketers.
“We’re keen to let all grassroots players and fans keep an eye on the detailed records of their good, great and ugly achievements in cricket. Nobody needs to ever miss a ball again.”
