A robot in New Zealand has predicted that Afghanistan will win the ICC World Cup 2015, that is scheduled to get underway on February 14th. The prediction was made by University of Canterbury’s robot, named Ikram, after viewing the 14 competing countries’ flag.
After narrowing the field down to India, the West Indies, Scotland, New Zealand and Afghanistan, the robot decided that Afghanistan would be champions.
Eduardo Sandoval, a University of Canterbury HITLab PhD student, has developed the robot’s prediction software.
“Of course, this is very unlikely, but with cricket the outcome can always be unexpected,” Sandoval said.
Sandoval also said that inspired by Paul the Octopus who made predictions for the 2010 football World Cup, he decided to test Ikram’s powers of prediction.
Afghanistan are 1000-1 in betting odds to win the tournament and are very much the minnows among the cricketing nations. They are clubbed with Australia, Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, Scotland and Sri Lanka in Pool A.
