Mumbai: While the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) had their share of reservations against the Decision Review System (DRS) in the past, it is learnt that the system is set to become a part of the Indian Premier League (IPL) since the eleventh edition of the tournament.
If the DRS is introduced, IPL will become the second Twenty20 league in the world after the Pakistan Super League (PSL) to use DRS.
IPL 2018, which is to start on April 7, will see a comeback of Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Rajasthan Royals (RR) after the teams were suspended for two years in the wake of spot-fixing. While the CSK and RR comeback is exciting, the introduction of DRS will also be a welcome addition.
“The BCCI was keen to have DRS on board since quite some time but it was only this year we felt we should go ahead with it for the IPL. We have the best of all other systems in place, so why not DRS? Anyway we have been using it for India’s international matches for over a year and a half now,” a BCCI official was quoted as saying by The Indian Express.
It is also reported that the BCCI had conducted a session for ten umpires in Vizag in December last year regarding DRS. The ICC umpires’ coach Denis Burns and Paul Reiffel, ex-Australian pacer-turned-umpire, briefed the ten umpires who will be officiating in IPL 2018.
One of the umpires, who attended the session, said, “Indian domestic cricket doesn’t use the DRS system till date. As local umpires are being hired for the IPL, the board had called us to be briefed about the system. We were told that the board will be using DRS in IPL and they wanted us to get used to the technology.”
