How to choose a cricket analysis app: what each type measures

Disclosure: we make one of these tools

Stance Cricket is made by CitroSpace, the company founded by the authors of this page, Rishi Gupta and Pradaksh Prasun. This page describes types of tools in general terms, not any particular product. Stance, our product, appears as an example of a body-mechanics tool and in a few recommendations below; read those parts with that in mind. What Stance itself measures, and how it is filmed, is set out on our page Stance vs other cricket apps.

Where we say what a type of tool usually does, we are summarising how such tools describe themselves, as of October 2026. Products within a type differ and change often, and we have not tested the accuracy of tools we do not make, so check the one you are considering before you pay.

Start with what you want measured

Most cricket analysis tools are built around one thing: the ball, the body, the bat or the squad. Ball-tracking apps are built to log what every delivery did; body-mechanics apps measure joints, usually from clips you choose and upload rather than from every ball of a match; bat sensors measure the swing; academy apps organise players, footage and reports. Choosing the type first narrows the field faster than any feature list.

Ball-tracking apps: what the ball did

A ball-tracking app finds the ball in every frame and, in most cases, uses the stumps — 71.12 cm tall and 22.86 cm wide under Law 8 — as its ruler for distance. Most want a phone on a tripod behind the bowler’s stumps, looking down the pitch with the stumps at both ends in view, and most clip each delivery automatically. Typical outputs are speed, a pitch map or line and length, swing, spin and release point; some add batting data such as wagon wheels, and some sell licences for matches or leagues separately from plans for net sessions.

Broadcast ball tracking such as Hawk-Eye works from several tracking cameras. A phone tracker usually works from one phone in one position, which is why its set-up instructions — tripod height, distance behind the stumps, which stumps must be in view — are worth following exactly.

These apps are built around the ball. They focus on what each delivery did; a few add a body measure such as arm angle, but a camera behind the stumps sees the bowler from behind, not from the side. If you want to know why your pace dropped or your length drifted, you will usually want a side-on view as well.

Check before paying: whether you can put the camera where it asks at your nets; how many deliveries the free tier covers each month; whether a paid plan is tied to one device; whether match use needs a separate licence; and which phones it supports for filming, not only for viewing.

Bowling-speed apps and radar guns: a number for pace

Most bowling-speed apps time the ball rather than measure it directly. You tap at release and at arrival, or mark those two frames on a video, and the app divides a pitch distance by the time between them; a few track the ball automatically. They are usually the cheapest route to a number, and how good the number is depends mostly on how you film and mark.

Frame rate sets the precision. Release and arrival rarely fall exactly on a frame, so a count can be out by about one frame either way: at 30 fps one frame is 33 milliseconds, roughly ±6% on a 120 km/h delivery; at 240 fps it is about 4 milliseconds, under ±1%. Taps are coarser still: if your two taps are out by a combined 0.05 seconds, a 120 km/h ball reads anywhere from about 110 to 132 km/h.

Distance is the setting to check first. The stumps are 20.12 m apart (Law 6), but the ball leaves the hand roughly 1.2–1.8 m in front of the bowler’s stumps, so on a full pitch it travels about 18.5 m to the batter’s stumps. An app that assumes 20.12 m reads about 9% fast, turning a 120 km/h ball into about 130 km/h. Some apps default to 20.12 m, so check what distance yours assumes and whether you can change it. Our guide to checking bowling speed on your phone shows the method step by step.

A handheld radar gun measures speed directly, with no distance to assume, but it is a separate device that costs far more than a phone app. It reads the ball’s speed along its own line of sight, so it has to be lined up with the ball: a 100 mph ball read from 5 degrees off-line shows 99.6 mph, and the error grows as the angle widens. Even lined up, one research team quotes ±3% for the sports radar it used, about ±3.6 km/h at the 119 km/h average speed that study recorded.

A radar gun reads the ball at or just after release, when it is fastest; by the time it lands, air resistance has slowed it by about 12%. A frame count averages the speed over the whole flight, so it reads lower than radar for the same ball. Neither is wrong — they measure different things — so compare each reading only with readings taken the same way. Our free bowling speed calculator does the frame sum in a browser with a ±1-frame error band, and our guide to bowling speed apps explains each method in more detail.

Bat sensors: what the bat did

A bat sensor is a small device fitted to the bat that sends data to a phone app, such as bat speed, bat angles and the shape of the swing, depending on the sensor. There is no camera to set up: you fit the sensor, pair it with the app and bat.

It is built around the bat rather than the ball or the batter’s body: it shows how fast and at what angle the bat came through, and to see whether your base or head position caused it you need video of the body. Check before buying: the price of the hardware, whether there is a subscription on top of it, battery life, how the sensor attaches to your bat, and which phones the app supports.

Body-mechanics apps: how the body produced it

Body-mechanics apps use pose estimation: a model locates the player’s joints in every frame, so angles and the order in which the body segments move can be measured from ordinary video, with no markers or wearable sensors. For bowlers that can mean the run-up, delivery stride, front-leg brace, trunk and bowling arm; for batters, the base, trunk rotation, head position and sequencing through the shot, as set out in our guide to cricket biomechanics from video.

Most work from the side. A single camera measures movement across its view well and movement towards or away from the lens poorly, so these apps usually want a side-on or semi-side-on view, square to the action. Some analyse one delivery from slow-motion video, some combine several camera views, some ask for several deliveries per session, and some add training plans or feedback in Hindi.

Stance is one tool of this type that adds ball data. From phone clips with the stumps in frame, it gives three separate analyses: batting body mechanics; ball speed, line and length, calibrated from the stumps’ regulated size with no radar or sensor; and run-up mechanics. For bowlers it also measures the action, including elbow angle through the release window, which is information, not an official ruling. It is a web app: you film with your phone’s own camera and upload in a browser, with nothing to install. A session needs at least two deliveries, we publish the method and its limits, and access is by waitlist while Stance is in closed beta. Our filming guide shows where to put the phone for each clip.

Stance works on clips you film and upload. If what you want is a running log of every ball in a session or match, with pitch maps, swing and spin, a ball-tracking app is built for that job.

Check before paying for any body-mechanics tool: which camera views it supports, and whether it tells you when a view cannot support a measurement; whether it covers batting, bowling or both; how many clips a session needs; and whether the maker explains how it measures and where the method stops working.

Manual video-analysis software: you do the measuring

Manual video-analysis software lets you slow footage down, step through it frame by frame, compare two clips side by side, draw on frames and measure angles, distances and times by hand. Free and open-source options exist. Being manual, it leaves the measuring to you: the numbers are as good as your care in marking and your camera angle.

Some of it runs only on a computer, and only on certain operating systems, so check before you download. Choose it if you have more time than budget, or want to check one thing closely — a bowler’s front-knee angle at front-foot contact, for example.

Academy and club apps: running the squad

Academy and club apps focus on the squad rather than on one measurement: clipping long net or match recordings into individual deliveries, player profiles, drills, scheduling, session plans, and reports or dashboards for players and parents. Some include AI analysis, and what it covers varies — some are built mainly around batting shots — so check before assuming it measures your bowlers.

They are often priced by squad size or by the number of coaches and players, monthly or yearly. What makes a squad’s records worth keeping is comparability: the same quantities, measured the same way for every player, and a history that stays with the academy when a coach leaves. In Stance, a coach or academy creates an organisation and invites players, every player’s sessions roll up into one squad grid, each measured the same way, and the session history outlives any change of staff. Our guide for coaches sets out what to look for.

Camera position decides what you can measure

Ball trackers and body-mechanics tools usually want the phone in different places. A ball tracker typically looks down the pitch from behind the bowler’s stumps, where it can see both sets of stumps and the ball’s whole path; a body-mechanics tool looks at the player from the side, because that is the view in which the joints move across the frame rather than towards the lens. One phone cannot be in both places at once.

Some tools report the ball’s speed, line and length alongside body measures — Stance does — and each says where it wants the phone; ours is in our filming guide. If you want a ball tracker’s log of every delivery — pitch maps, swing and spin, ball after ball — as well as a side-on view of the body, use two phones, one behind the stumps and one side-on, or film separate sets. Keep each camera position the same from week to week, because each of these tools is most useful when compared with itself. Speed figures from different tools and positions will not match exactly, so pick one as your reference for speed.

What to check before you pay

1. What it measures: the ball, the bat or the body. Make sure the numbers describe the thing you want to change.
2. How it is filmed or worn, and whether you can set that up where you train: a tripod at a given height and distance, a clear side-on spot, a second phone, or a sensor on the bat.
3. The free tier. Free tiers capped by the number of deliveries or analyses a month are common, and some are one-off trials. Work out whether the cap covers a normal week of nets before you film a full session.
4. The subscription. Check the billing period — app-store price lists often do not say whether an in-app price is monthly, yearly or one-off — and whether a plan is tied to one device or a set number of players. App-store prices also vary by country.
5. Platforms. Check that it runs on the phone you will film with, not only on the one you will watch on. Some tools run on one phone platform only, some on a computer and some in a browser.
6. For speed: the distance it assumes (about 18.5 m from release to the batter’s stumps on a full pitch, not 20.12 m), the frame rate it needs, and whether it reports speed at release or an average over the flight.
7. A trial on a session you know. Before paying for a year, run it on footage you already understand — and, for speeds, against a radar gun if you can borrow one.

Which type fits you

You want the speed, line and pitch map of every ball in the nets: a ball-tracking app.

You want an occasional speed reading for little or nothing: a frame-marking speed app, or our free bowling speed calculator, with slow-motion video and the distance set to about 18.5 m.

You are testing a squad’s pace or checking an app: a handheld radar gun lined up behind the bowler. For a reference figure, radar is the better choice.

You bat and want data on every swing without setting up a camera: a bat sensor.

You want to know why a shot or delivery came out as it did: a body-mechanics app filmed side-on. If you bowl and also want the ball’s speed, line and length alongside the action, Stance measures both; it is in closed beta, by waitlist.

You run a club or academy: an academy management app for admin, clips and parents, alongside whichever analysis tool measures what your players need.

You have more time than budget: manual video-analysis software, measuring by hand.

You want every ball logged and the body examined: a ball tracker for every delivery and a side-on tool for the deliveries worth examining, filmed with two phones.