25 November,2009 08:39 AM IST | | Agencies
The International Cricket Council (ICC) is hoping the new review system to be used for the first time in Australia in tomorrow's Test against the West Indies, will prevent the kind of brouhaha that almost resulted in India's 2007-08 tour of this country being called off.
The ICC believes the new system will prevent a repetition of the kind of incident that occurred in the Sydney Test in which umpire Steve Bucknor did not give Andrew Symonds out caught behind by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
ICC general manager of cricket Dave Richardson is in Brisbane to explain the umpire decision review system, under which teams have two referrals per inning and technology is used to decide whether the on field umpire is correct or not.
However, India are stoutly opposed to the move and South Africa are also expected to reject the referral proposal.
Home boards and/or broadcasters have been asked to foot the bills, which has caused resistance.
A batsman who has been dismissed or fielding captain who believes a not-out decision was out can ask the video umpire for a review, with each team allowed two unsuccessful challenges per innings.
The ICC hopes the experiment will encourage more batsmen to walk.
However, the new system could fall on its face if Cricket Australia (CA) fails to strike a late deal with Hot Spot technology for the series starting in Brisbane tomorrow.
So far, the ICC has left it to home cricket boards to negotiate and pay for expensive devices such as Hot Spot, which was developed in New Zealand.
The technology is being used in the ongoing series between New Zealand and Pakistan which started in Dunedin yesterday.
CA is reportedly involved in a frantic attempt to avail of the intellectual property which enables television viewers to have better access to technology than the umpires.
According to Richardson, trials of the system improved the accuracy rate of umpiring decisions. He said in the 11 Tests covered in a trial period over three different series there were 37 errors made by umpires and 30 of them were corrected by using the system, lifting the percentage rate of correct decisions to 97 per cent.
"That is the major reason why we are going to go ahead," Richardson said. "We also found it led to better player behaviour. There were fewer incidents of dissent from players."
The following technology can be used under the decision-review system to decide whether a batsman should be given out or not:
u00b7 Slow-mo
u00b7 Super slow-mo
u00b7 Stump mic sound
u00b7 Hawk- Eye : the approved ball-tracking technology (but only to determine where the ball pitched and where it hit the batsman's pad, not to predict if it would have hit the stumps)
u00b7 Ultra-motion
u00b7 Pitch mat generated by approved ball-tracking technology
u00b7 Hot Spot
u00b7 Each team is allowed a maximum of two failed challenges per innings.
