AI decision review system being trialled at Darwin Women’s Division 1 cricket competition

Darwin’s premier women’s cricket league has become the first Australian grade competition to introduce an artificial intelligence (AI) umpire review system.

During the opening round of the 2026 Darwin Division 1 season, players were able to challenge leg-before-wicket (LBW) decisions through a full-track AI system.

It operates via a high-resolution camera strapped to the umpire’s chest and determines whether a tracked ball has hit the stumps.

The system has been on trial for 12 months. Calculates the approximate trajectory of a pitch based on records of about 1 million other balls pitched.

Arjun Verma, co-founder and CEO of Fulltrack AI, said the system uses various models to make decisions.

“we [use] 2D ball detection model [combined] We take a physical model and use that to extract the complete 3D ball track,” he said.

Verma said ball tracking is not as accurate as the multi-camera systems used in international cricket and tennis, which use up to 16 cameras to triangulate the ball’s position.

But he said local leagues around the world were deploying AI technology at a fraction of the cost “to get rid of those grumpy Sunday cricketers”.

“You think the average club cricketer is grumpier than you think and misses more matches than he actually is,” he says.

“Even at club level, about 85 per cent of the time, we reinforce the referee’s decisions.”

Players keen to challenge decision

One team in each women’s division will receive two challenges per inning.

PINT captain Amy Yates said she would accept even if there was a slight chance of overturning the decision that resulted in her being denied a wicket or being sent off.

“As a batter, you only get one chance every week,” she said.

“If we get a chance to actually review it, it will help a lot, because cricket can be a tough game.”

PINT men’s team coach Will Glover said he believed the data provided by the platform would be useful from a coaching perspective and that it would “not be long” before it was trialled in the men’s game.

“I was a little skeptical at first about how it would work in the game settings, but the data returned actually [has] It was amazing,” he said.

“Being able to get a very accurate pitch map was extremely beneficial to our bowling group and also allowed us to get closer to the batters.”

Northern Territory aims to attract referees

All but one of the Top End women’s teams agreed to take part in the trials, with Nightcliff Cricket Club declining to participate.

Nightcliff president Josh Smith said: “This trial required a significant financial commitment from the club, which we ultimately determined was not the best use of the club’s resources.”

NT Cricket’s director of clubs and competitions Karl Mayne said the trial was aimed at eliminating any perception of bias in the game, which in some cases meant players and coaches had to referee themselves.

“We thought that by trying it out in matches where self-refereeing would take place, it might give some independence to decision-making and help quell debate and conflict,” he said.

Mayne said checking decision-making could attract new referees to the game.

“I think there are quite a few people in the community who don’t become referees because they’re afraid or anxious about making the wrong decision, so a tool like this could alleviate some of that problem,” he said.

Although there are no plans to expand the trials to the men’s tournament, club leagues in other states have been watching the women’s trials with interest.

“We’ve certainly had people from Australian cricket and other major competitions say, ‘This is interesting,'” Mr Mayne said.

“I think we have the upper hand in the game and there will be a lot of attention on what we do.”