England Women using Artificial Intelligence to select playing XI: Coach Jon Lewis

London: England are using Artificial Intelligence (AI) while picking their playing eleven, women's Head coach Jon Lewis has revealed, saying the technology provided crucial feedback as far as match-ups are concerned and also helped them win T20 series against Australia.

Lewis said he got to know about the technology, powered by a London-based company PSi, while he was coaching the UP Warriorz in the inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) in India in March 2023.

Interestingly, Steve Borthwick, the England Rugby Union coach who also manages rugby league team Wigan Warriors and English Football League One side Wigan Athletic have also used the same system, reported ESPNCricinfo.

The England head coach said the AI system has successful helped them take the eventual call of picking one player when two in-form players with almost similar skillsets were up for selection in a game against Australia during the Women's Ashes last year.

"We are able to run simulated teams versus the simulated opposition to give us an idea about how those teams may match up against each other," Lewis was quoted as saying ESPNCricinfo.

"I can send multiple different lineups to the company and they run, I think it's about 250,000 simulations per team that I send with all the different permutations that could happen through the game," he added.

He continued, "What I would say is it's not how we select the side, but it's one part of selection that we use to help understand what could possibly happen in the future. We used it very successfully in the Ashes last summer with match-ups against the Australian side."

Providing further insights to how the system has helped the England Women’s side, Lewis said, "There was one selection in particular last year. We saw a real strength in Australia and we matched up our strength, our best bowlers, to that part of the game against Australia last year."

Lewis reflected, "That worked really, really well for us. That helped us win the T20 series in particular and that got us back in the Ashes," referring to England's 2-1 win over Australia.

"The players were both players that I was thinking about picking. So it did help me with those selections and it turned out that it worked out really well," he said.

Lewis, however, admitted that traditional ways of selecting teams after monitoring players in their preparations could not be replaced but AI can only help in arrive at better decisions.

"Obviously we're on the ground with the people and that's probably the first thing that we look to in terms of selection, which people are playing well, we use our cricketing eye," Lewis said, adding, "But it's one small part of what we do and it's really interesting, and it played out really well last summer against Australia."

"I think it will help with borderline decisions in terms of selections and match-ups. Will it ever be at the front, the thing that selects the team? I would say, in my view, no. Other coaches may feel very differently, but it is really interesting," he said.

Lewis said AI can only play one small part in the whole process and helping players prepare their best remains paramount.

"It can help selections, but my go-to would be get your people right first, get them all in the right head space, get their games in order, and then use data to support around selection," he added.