When the cricket ball comes in contact with the bat or the protective gear of the batsman, the friction due to this impact locally generates heat which is a result of energy transfer from ball to bat. This heat signature is captured over a number of sequential frames by an Infrared video camera and computationally processed to give these beautiful images. However, controversy has loomed over this technology and we explore why. Last year, when India was playing England at Trentbridge, a minor incident involving VVS Laxman, Mathew Vaughn and Vaseline Jelly caught a lot of attention. However, it was proven by the inventors of HotSpot that Vaseline, if applied on the edge of the bat, can not hide the heat signature from the HotSpot Camera. However, our interest was to work out the phenomenon and see what material may be able to hide that HotSpot.This project is being presented at EmTech India 2012 as a featured session, organized by MIT’s Technology Review magazine and CyberMedia India.

Authors: Chinmaya Joshi, Ramesh Raskar