India ready to use modified DRS

Reuters - The Indian cricket board (BCCI) has finally agreed to use the Decision Review System (DRS) after the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Monday proposed a modified version of the technology which allows teams to challenge umpire rulings.

Teams can make two unsuccessful appeals against an umpire’s decision using DRS but under the new version, ball-tracking technology will no longer be mandatory.

“The agreed standards will include infra-red cameras and audio-tracking devices,” the governing body said in a statement.

“The continued use of ball-tracking technology as a decision-making aid will depend on bilateral agreement between the participating members.”

The BCCI had been opposing DRS’s mandatory use in all test and one-day internationals as it felt the ball-tracking technology was “unreliable” but the ICC’s new version appears to have won the Indian board over.

“The BCCI is agreeable to the use of technology in decision-making, which will include infra-red cameras and audio-tracking devices,” BCCI secretary N Srinivasan said in a statement.

Of the existing DRS tools, Snickometer is used to detect edges, Hot Spot uses infra-red cameras to give more convincing indications of the ball’s point of contact, while Hawk Eye replicates the ball’s trajectory.

The ICC also recommended a qualification process to accommodate teams outside the 10 test playing nations in the 2015 World Cup.

A proposal to abolish a runner aiding an injured batsman was also approved and all these issues will be discussed in the two-day ICC Executive Board meeting starting on Tuesday.