Innovative Virtual Reality Training Schedule for Cricket Batting Skill Enhancement: Design, Validation, and Implementation

Abstract

The goal of the study is to design and validate of virtual reality training schedule that will help cricket batsmen become more proficient at batting. In addition to reviewing the relevant literature on virtual reality training that develops and examines the player's skills, techniques, and decision-making abilities in various sports, the Virtual Reality Training Schedule (VRTS) aims to utilize the capabilities of virtual reality technology to provide an immersive and interactive training environment, allowing batsmen to practice and refine their batting techniques, decision-making abilities, and adaptability to diverse match scenarios. With the aid of tables and charts, the paper explains the process of designing and validating the virtual reality training schedule by adhering to important guidelines and professional recommendations. The paper highlights a well-designed Virtual reality training schedule that addresses the needs of the batsmen for cricket batting skill development. The study comes to the conclusion that the Virtual Reality Training Schedule has effectively met the urgent need for cutting-edge training techniques in the improvement of cricket batting skills. The use of virtual reality technology in training design has created new opportunities to improve batting abilities and overall performance. The research was conducted on an intentionally selected 20 male right-handed cricket batsmen aged 16–19 years old who were recruited from the Under-19 Interstate Championship, Punjab, India. The study assesses the overall cricket batting ability through a virtual reality training schedule in two different parts: a Virtual reality training schedule design and validation through experts and another part practical implementation to assess the training schedule's effect on selected batsmen's batting skill. For the VR training, the Researcher used the IB Cricket companion software where batsmen enhance their individual skills by wearing an Oculus Quest Advance 2.0 device which is a hardware companion ware run. (VRTG) participated in 12 practice sessions that were conducted over 4 weeks, each week 3 sessions, and each session was 35 Min for every Batsman. The results showed that the virtual reality training schedule significantly improved the batting skill ability of virtual reality training group (VRTG) batsmen. Specifically, for selected batting ability, there was a notably higher training load when playing in the regular environment compared to VR. Based on these findings, we recommend using the virtual environment to train effectively for batting skills enhancement. For performance-level players, VR is a suitable training tool in terms of muscle activation and batting skill enhancement.