Could hologram stickers help regulate cricket matches?

Hologram stickers have long been used for security purposes – including the protection of passports and banknotes in many countries. Because they cannot be copied, forged or altered they are one of the most secure methods of verification.

In sticker form, holograms are particularly useful to manufacturers of everything from DVDs to sports equipment, as they are a flexible way to track, protect and confirm authenticity of products. Many sports equipment brands are already using hologram stickers to help protect against counterfeit copies, for example all Yonex rackets contain a hologram sticker that cannot be removed. Similarly, all Liverpool Football Club merchandise contains a unique hologram so that fans can register their official goods.

Now there’s a potential new use for hologram stickers in sports fixtures; one cricket commentator, Sanjay Manjrekar, noticed that cricket bats used in professional cricket matches were increasing in size every season. Manjrekar argues that teams using huge bats have an unfair advantage, and that bat size is now going some way to determining which team wins the match.

His proposed solution was to ensure that all teams had their cricket bats regulated by the International Cricket Council. Each match, once bats were confirmed to meet regulations by the match referee, they would be marked with a hologram sticker.

At Hague we produce hologram stickers for a huge range of applications, including packaging, tamper-evident seal and brand protection, but this idea is a new one. Have you heard of this method being used in any other sports? Perhaps holograms could become the standard for verifying equipment in all professional fixtures!