To avoid any kind of match-fixing or unfair use accusations, the National cricket team of Pakistan has been stopped by the ICC (International Cricket Council) officials from wearing any kind of smartwatches while being on the pitch for the play.
As stated by Hassan Ali, members of ICC’s anti-corruption unit had a meeting with Pakistan team players after the first day of opening test match at Lord’s versus England and warned the players to not wear any watches with any text or voice message transmission ability.
Babar Azam and Asad Shafiq were seen wearing smartwatches during the play even though there wasn’t any evidence of any kind of unfair activity by the two of them. There was no evidence of these smartwatches working from an LTE connection or being connected to any smartphone.
“I didn’t know who was wearing them, but, yes, the ICC anti-corruption officer came to speak to us and they told us this is not allowed. Next time, nobody will wear them,” Hassan told the reporters at the end of day’s play.
Under current ICC laws, Cricketers are forbidden from having any kind of communication device on them during the play on the pitch. Players are made to hand over their personal communication devices like mobile phones and smartwatches etc to the match officials. These devices are returned shortly after the end of the day’s play.
“Apple Watches in any way connected to a phone or Wi-Fi, or in any way capable of receiving comms such as messages, are not allowed. In effect, it is considered a phone unless ‘disabled’ and just a watch,” one of the ICC spokesmen told ESPNcricinfo later
LTE version from the Series 3 is the only variant of Apple Watch capable of any kind of independent communications from smartphones as all its predecessors relied on connecting with the smartphone via Bluetooth in order to make any calls or texts. So any flow of information between cricketers and pavilion has to happen in the outdated ways like taking comfort breaks and swapping gloves.
