Front foot no balls to be decided by third umpires in Eng-Pak series

Recently there were incidents which led to the rise of wrong decisions by the umpires. To overcome this problem and to get rid of the incorrect decisions, a new technology will be applied soon in all International Cricket matches. This technology will be used for the first time in the One-Day-International (ODI) series between England and Pakistan. This unprecedented use of technology will help the third umpire to take a call on front-foot no-balls. With the new technology, the umpires will be able to see the delivery live and followed 1.5 seconds later by a shot of the front-foot landing. The umpire will see consulting replays and if he finds that it is a no-ball, then the umpire can send a signal to a ”pager-watch”.

This year witnessed two noticeable incidents. One of which happened in a match between Australia and New Zealand where was Adam Voges was bowled out on seven by the ball of Doug Bracewell, but the umpire Richard Illingworth wrongly called a no-ball. Another similar incident took place at the Lord’s when Alex Hales was bowled by the Sri Lankan bowler Nuwan Pradeep but the umpire of the match gave similar judgement.

In order to eradicate such errors in a match, the senior manager for umpires and referees in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Adrian Griffith requested the cricket governing body to make third umpire a specialist position. While talking to ESPNcricinfo, Griffith said "The cricket committee this year said, we want to look at something to assist the umpires with calling no-balls, because we've had the two incidences where no-balls were called and a wicket has fallen - and you can't reverse it.” He added that the cricket committee has said that they want to look at something and this is what they have put forward to look at. And he also said that they will have a trial of that and will go back with their findings.

During the conversation with the reporters, the Senior Manager said "In the games that have been played in England, with Sri Lanka and now Pakistan, we've been looking at systems to see how it would work, we've had our third umpire sit there and try it out. So we got some feedback on that and we got the sense, yes, it could work. But unless we put it in a live game we really wouldn't know what it can do, what the limitations are. So first we check the technology and now we put it in a real, live trial."

This technology is similar to the technology which is used in a football match to determine whether the ball has crossed the goal-line or not. Reports suggested that Marias Erasmus and Simon Fry will be the first two men who will be experiencing this technology.

It was found out that the technology has already been tested in the English county matches with a motive to analyse the third umpire’s workload since he also has the job to check a variety of issues like run-outs, stumpings and catch-out. It is now to see how the new technology works in the upcoming ODI series between England and Pakistan which is going to take place today.