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Video: Steve Waugh recreates famous Ashes century for Augmented Reality

Steve Waugh
Steve Waugh

On the second day of the final Ashes Test in 2003, Steve Waugh made a memorable century, scoring his hundredth run off the final ball of the day. Although Australia lost that Test, they had already won the Ashes before the final game started. The last-ball century is described by Waugh himself as 'The Cinderella Story' and is one of the most memorable moments at the Sydney Cricket Ground.

It will soon be 15 years since Waugh made history and the SCG has something special planned to honour the former Australia captain. The Sydney Cricket and Sports Ground Trust has partnered with Steve Waugh and Avanade to create an augmented reality experience celebrating the famous century.

The AR experience will be available to visitors when England play Australia at the SCG. It’s also available for free download and viewable on mobile devices.

To make the whole experience possible, Steve Waugh had to wear a motion-capture suit, which captured his exact movements as he scored the century. Waugh had to watch the footage of him scoring the century and then try and recreate the shots with exactly the same movements.

Waugh seen
Waugh seen replicating his shots.

“It was actually a lot harder than I thought. To recreate the shot because when you're playing it's just instinct, you don't think about it. To mirror the exact trigger movements that accompany each shot was difficult to achieve as they were instinctive and not manufactured,” Waugh said.

The AR experience is something that will attract both English as well as Australian fans. With VR/AR becoming increasingly popular day by day, it won't be surprising if we see such interactive games being introduced all around the world.

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