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From eye movements to actions: how batsmen hit the ball

Nature Neuroscience volume 3, pages 1340–1345 (2000)Cite this article

Abstract

In cricket, a batsman watches a fast bowler's ball come toward him at a high and unpredictable speed, bouncing off ground of uncertain hardness. Although he views the trajectory for little more than half a second, he can accurately judge where and when the ball will reach him. Batsmen's eye movements monitor the moment when the ball is released, make a predictive saccade to the place where they expect it to hit the ground, wait for it to bounce, and follow its trajectory for 100–200 ms after the bounce. We show how information provided by these fixations may allow precise prediction of the ball's timing and placement. Comparing players with different skill levels, we found that a short latency for the first saccade distinguished good from poor batsmen, and that a cricket player's eye movement strategy contributes to his skill in the game.

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Figure 1: The physical parameters that determine where and when the ball will reach the batsman, and the measurements he can make to determine the time and point of contact.
Figure 2: Frames from the eye-tracker video, showing the batsman's view of an approaching ball, and the direction foveal gaze as he watches it (white dot).
Figure 3: Relations of visual variables and ball direction during the delivery illustrated in Fig. 2.
Figure 4: Average gaze and ball trajectories for each player facing very short, short, good length and over-pitched deliveries (short balls bounce far from him, long ones bounce near him).
Figure 5: The initial downward saccades vary in timing and size depending on the identity of the batsman, and the length of the delivery.
Figure 6: To hit a ball at the right place and time, based on information obtained at the time of the bounce, a batsman would need to know the two sets of relationships shown by these surfaces.

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Acknowledgements

We thank J. Horwood for several months of video analysis, and to Z. Dienes for commenting on the manuscript. Support came in part from a grant from the Gatsby foundation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Biological Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QG, UK

    Michael F. Land

  2. Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK

    Peter McLeod

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  1. Michael F. Land
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  2. Peter McLeod
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Correspondence to Michael F. Land.

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Land, M., McLeod, P. From eye movements to actions: how batsmen hit the ball. Nat Neurosci 3, 1340–1345 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/81887

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