Looks like there is a new technology in town:

The Big Ten Network, a joint venture of the Big Ten Conference and Fox Networks, began using the technology in the spring of 2010 for short recaps of baseball and softball games. They were posted on the network’s Web site within a minute or two of the end of each game; box scores and play-by-play data were used to generate the brief articles. (Previously, the network relied on online summaries provided by university sports offices.) As the spring sports season progressed, the computer-generated articles improved, helped by suggestions from editors on the network’s staff, says Michael Calderon, vice president for digital and interactive media at the Big Ten Network.

In the past, I suspected Cricinfo of using the same kind of technology, but my suspicion was more down to earth, meaning the commentary was the kind of mundane stuff like “FOUR. Cover drive”. However, Will Luke, a commentator at Cricinfo, said that they didn’t use anything like that and actually had to type everything.

At that time, I praised him & Cricinfo for such attention to quality, but I think now if they still actually do that, the folks at Cricinfo are truly nuts. You could have a simple addition to the scoring system to generate the necessary boilerplate. And then the commentators could add more interesting stuff like emails from fans.

Having said that, I think the quality of commentary at Cricinfo has been very depressing of late. I am not sure if the ESPN acquisition has contributed to it, but something’s not quite right. If England is playing, I tune into the Guardian over-by-over commentary which is far more worth reading. I suppose having some robots at Cricinfo may even make a positive difference.