Tucker aims to give Bermuda an edge

He’s not quite the Wizard of OZ, the man behind the curtain pulling the strings, but Lorenzo Tucker’s influence extends to the cricket pitch.

He is charged with providing video and data analysis for the Bermuda team at the ICC World Cricket League Division 2 Tournament.

With six games being played over eight days, although the data from matches can be quickly retrieved from a database, players will need to eat, attend team meetings, get treatment from the physio and get their required rest.

Tucker, who has been the official analyst since 2006, will work hard to ensure the players and coaching staff get the opportunity to review data and plan ahead.

The teams that Bermuda will face are United Arab Emirates, Namibia, Uganda, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea, the latter two having qualified from the Division 3 qualifier in January.

Tucker is being asked to provide analysis of the other squads.

He said: "Papua New Guinea and Hong Kong are new to us and I haven't seen any of their players.

“However, I have started to track their road to qualification for this tournament and it's easy to tell who the key players are with the bat and the ball.

“Seven of Hong Kong's players will be attending a camp in Australia prior to the tournament so they are definitely pulling out all the stops and will be difficult to beat. 

“We are warming up against Hong Kong prior to the tournament starting so this will obviously help."

Each individual player can get customized reporting, according to Tucker.

For example, most players will want to see specifics from their performance, with bowlers focusing on their pitch maps (cluster report showing where the ball was pitched and runs resulting) and bowling wagon wheel (showing which areas of the field were runs conceded).

Strategy

“Other players may request a DVD of their innings where they can take it back to their room and watch. 

“These DVDs can be in the form of a highlight package where the last thing they see before they close their eyes for the night will be them playing positive cricket.

“The coaches have also requested data from the matches to highlight problems they have identified or to set strategy for the next match.”

"The cricket analysis can be broken down in two phases (pre game analysis and post game analysis).

“In pre game analysis if we have prior recent data from a team we have played before we can analyze their key players and put a plan together to restrict their success.

“In post game analysis we simply analyze the just concluded performance.

Technology in cricket today enhances performance which in turn brings positive results and those who do not embrace it get left behind very quickly.” n