Mumbai: The Indian cricket board on Friday decided to include Decision Review System (DRS) on trial basis during the five-match Test series against England.
“The Board of Control for Cricket in India will deploy the Decision Review System, in toto, in the forthcoming series between India and England starting from the 9th of Nov 2016, on a trial basis to evaluate the improvements made to the system, over a period of time,” said BCCI’s media release.
“In the meeting with the ICC and the Hawkeye officials, the improvements made to the system were further evaluated by the BCCI team, who were satisfied that most of the concerns and suggestions that were expressed by BCCI over a period of time, were addressed to a significant extent,” added BCCI.
BCCI and India's contention had always been that 'Ball Tracking Technology' is not 100 per cent foolproof.
The doubts have stayed since India's disastrous tour of Sri Lanka in 2008 where the DRS in its initial form was used and the Indians got only one decision going their way.
The seniors at that time including Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni had all expressed their reservations. BCCI's stand has been obstinate for a long time even as ICC had repeatedly tried to reach out to them with Dhoni being at the helm of affairs.
However a change of heart seems to have happened once Virat Kohli took over the charge of the Test side. Kohli has time and again said that he is open to usage of technology.
Earlier this week, ICC and Hawk Eye representatives had given BCCI bigwigs, including president Anurag Thakur and coach Anil Kumble, a detailed presentation of the upgraded version of DRS.
Kumble's presence at the meeting had a special significance since he has been one among few people who are abreast with the kind of functional changes that has been worked to make the system better and remove BCCI's apprehension.
Incidentally, Kumble visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) lab in the United States where they were working to improve the controversial 'Ball Tracking Technology'.
The significant changes, which have been effected in the system, include:
1) The introduction of ultramotion cameras will address issues with regard to calculating the predictive path which allows the ball tracking, to be more accurate.
2) Manual intervention to set the impact point has been controlled by the introduction of the ‘Ultra edge’, which has been approved by MIT and will help in determining the frame of impact.
3) Ultraedge also ensures that post impact balls do not affect the predicted path or impact point and hence the accuracy has been improved.
4) Earlier, there was a possibility that the operator would have missed a delivery and hence a LBW appeal could have been missed. Now, Hawkeye has developed the technology to record and save all images so that in case an operator fails to arm the tracking system, the images can be rewound and replayed.
5) Basis the recommendation from BCCI, additional cameras have been installed so that there is redundancy and also provide 100% reliable spin vision for DRS.
Reacting on the BCCI’s decision to implement DRS on a trial basis, Thakur said: “We are happy to note that Hawkeye has institutionalised all the recommendations made by BCCI, and we confirm that this improved version of DRS will be used on a trial basis during the forthcoming series against England and based on the performance of the system and the feedback that we will receive, further continuation in forthcoming series will be decided. We recognise the enhanced role of technology in sport and BCCI will lead such initiatives in coming days, and enrich the viewer experience.”
BCCI secretary Ajay Shirke said, “With MIT endorsing the enhancements made in the system on the basis of recommendations made by the BCCI, we are convinced that such technology should be utilised in supporting correct decision making. While recognising that improvements in technology are ongoing, BCCI will continue to include any and all such path breaking interventions, to further the cause of the sport.”
