New Delhi: Perhaps bowing to the inevitable, the Board of Control for Cricket in India on Friday said the so far-ignored Decision Review System would be implemented in a bilateral series in India for the first time, against England later this year. In a statement, the BCCI said DRS would be deployed “in toto, in the forthcoming series between India and England starting from November 9, 2016, on a trial basis to evaluate the improvements made to the system, over a period of time.
“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,” the cricket board said. Between them, the cricket board and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have steadfastly opposed the predictive-based system. Test captain Virat Kohli and coach Anil Kumble however, have often spoken of their willingness to try out the system, which is in use around the cricketing world, and India has to use at all International Cricket Council events. openness to experiment with the technology. Kumble, who heads the ICC Cricket Committee, visited MIT last year to assess the upgraded research on ball tracking technology and the contentious Hot Spot, which had been termed unreliable in the past by the board.
India last played a Test series with DRS in use in 2008 in an away series against Sri Lanka where more often than not, they got nearly every review call wrong, and the Lankans, right. Opposition to the system dates back to that traumatic series, it is widely believed. Outlining the changes that have been effected post BCCI officials meeting with the ICC and Hawkeye, the company that has pioneered the technology, the board said it was “satisfied” that most of the concerns and suggestions that were expressed by it over a period of time, were “addressed to a significant extent”.
