Lockie Ferguson of Kolkata IPL fame develops new fast bowling analytics app with brother

New Zealand pacer Lockie Ferguson is among the fastest bowlers in the world at the moment. The right-arm speedster has been lethal with his raw pace and sharp bouncers. The Ferguson family is known for their fast bowling as Lockie Ferguson's elder brother Mitch Ferguson was also renowned for his quick pace back in the day at Auckland Grammar. However, Mitch's career didn't take off like his younger brother as he fell through the cracks and is now a software developer.

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Lockie Ferguson and brother Mitch develop app which helps measure bowling speed

The Ferguson brothers' obsession for speed made them develop an application called Machineroad with which bowlers can measure their speeds on their smartphones. Besides, measuring speed, the app also allows you to record your training sessions while providing real-time feedback on lengths and bounce points among other analytics. To find more about his bowling, all that a bowler need is a smartphone, a tripod set up 1.5 metres high and two metres behind the bowling crease.

While speaking to ESPNCricinfo, Lockie spoke in length about their new app. The Kiwi quick revealed that Machineroad was a brainchild of his elder brother. He said that as professionals, they get the opportunity to have HawkEye, ball tracking, and pitch mapping and all these sorts of analytics, which help to become a better cricketer and now they're trying to provide these tools to aspiring cricketers.

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Lockie revealed that he always wanted to be a quick bowler because his elder brother was a fast bowler but he wanted to be faster than him too. He further said that when he got the app out in training, everyone wanted to know how fast they could bowl including the batsmen which he says shows the passion cricketers have for fast bowling. He also disclosed the reason behind making the app.

Speaking on the same, Lockie said that the main reason behind creating the app was some of the things that he went through as a young cricketer. He added that he was going through the grades and involved in a lot of representative cricket and had quite a few injuries during that time as well. Lockie reckoned that the motive behind making the app was how they can provide visibility to some of those young players because he didn't want them to miss out on opportunities like he did when he was younger.

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Lockie stated that you've got HawkEye and a range of other pieces of equipment that does enable you to capture some of this data. However, he opined that one of the biggest things around that is a lot of that equipment is quite expensive, especially when you try to bring that equipment and technology to clubs and lot of other remote areas throughout the world as well. According to Lockie, one of the key things that they really wanted to focus on was how they can take that technology to everyone and simplify that data.

Meanwhile, Lockie recently represented the Kolkata IPL team in the Dream11 IPL 2020 where he impressed one and all with his brilliant bowling. The New Zealander played five matches for the Kolkata IPL team where he bagged six wickets at an average of 24.66 and economy rate of 7.46. Moreover, the Ferguson fastest ball during the competition was clocked at 153.84. The Ferguson fastest ball was also the fifth fastest in the tournament this year.

The Ferguson IPL price for 2020 was ₹1.6 crore. The Kiwi pacer was also a part of the recently concluded New Zealand vs West Indies 2020 T20 series which the Blackcaps won 2-0.

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SOURCE: KOLKATA IPL TWITTER