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Former India head coach Rahul Dravid on March 1 wnats Artificial Intelligence to predict injuries to players to help the teams manage the workload better. Dravid is looking for a perfect answer to why people suffer stress fractures and other injuries to help them avoid career-threatening injuries.
“On the sporting field, one of the things that you are really hopeful about what AI might be able to do, is (to predict) injuries,” Dravid told CNBC on March 1.
“You just look at the level of injuries that we have and no one really has a perfect answer as to why people pick up stress fractures and there is no one size fits all; I am just using a stress fracture for the back as an example for fast bowlers.
“You have seen over the last years so much of data, so much of sports medicine, science and stuff going into it but no one being able to really predict that, that’s sad, that’s (about) people’s careers, lives. So if AI can get us there and we will be able to predict injuries,” he added.
Dravid bats for balance
However, Dravid has advised against usage of too much technology and trust human judgment as well. He wants a balance where data can be a valuable addition but the final call lies with the person.
“I'm not saying that you can adopt it completely, but certainly it's a great tool and it's something that is being used more and more in sport in terms of strategy, in terms of tactics, player development, player enhancement,” he said.
“In this day and age, you've got to be able to use all of this data and technology for your benefit.
“(But) you can't become a slave of it, but certainly there are huge advantages to using artificial intelligence. You've got to find that balance between recognising that the data is important,” the former Indian captain said.
Dravid on why AI is not the complete answer
Dravid used India's premier fast bowler Jasprit Bumrah's example. Bumrah suffered a lower back injury during the Sydney Test and was ruled out of the ongoing ICC Champions Trophy 2025. He is against too much involvement of AI in the sport.
“Can we clone five Bumrahs or something? I mean, I'm just saying that, but that wouldn't be fun either, right? I mean, what would be the fun in that, right? Where's the uniqueness then?” he quipped.
“I think maybe leave sport alone for a bit and we don't want to get AI too involved in sport. There's got to be that human element to it. There's got to be a level of uniqueness to sport. So, that would be my wish really that we'd never get to a point where we are... It becomes easy,” he said.
“Bumrah is unique because it's so hard to do what Bumrah does,” said the 52-year-old.
How data helps selection in IPL
Dravid revealed that Indian Premier League (IPL) teams have relied on data to pick teams. He joined Rajasthan Royals (RR) ahead of the IPL 2025.
“You are already seeing data being used a lot in selection and becoming a lot better in terms of fairer selection, but at the moment we have not reached the point where we can just use data and stats to pick sides for variety of conditions,” he said.
“They are getting there, we are getting better and better at using the data as selectors.
"When we pick an IPL teams we are using the data and analytics a lot more than we did when we first started out in the IPL. We are already there but I don’t think we can completely rely on it,” he added.
Dravid on toning down data shown to players of T20 World Cup-winning team
Dravid also revealed that he studied a lot of data but did not share it with the players of the Indian team during the T20 World Cup 2024. He feels players can't just flick a switch and change with a few days to go in the match.
“Our job is really to collect the data, and I would say that, of the data that we've collected in the (2024) T20 World Cup, we did a lot of data in the year and a half, two years leading into that World Cup.
“I would say the players probably saw one hundredth of what we actually saw as coaches. I eventually distilled it down and said this is relevant. There's no point showing somebody data if you actually can't... So you can show data to some player, and say, ‘hey, this is what's wrong with you, this is what you need to improve’.
“But if you have only three days (between matches) and you're not going to be able to improve that in three days, what's the point of showing that to a particular player?”
Dravid signed off as India's head coach after guiding them to their second T20 World Cup title.
