Decision Review System (DRS) in cricket has been the most debated point since its introduction in 2008. It was designed with the sole purpose of reviewing controversial decisions made by on-field umpires, but unfortunately, things became more complex since it was introduced in international cricket.
DRS has gone through a number of changes in the last few years and convinced all but the BCCI to put it into use, which meant that DRS wasn't used in any bilateral series involving India.
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Recently, ICC approved the changes to DRS playing conditions as recommended by the ICC cricket committee and accordingly made the presentation to BCCI as well, which resulted in BCCI accepting the review system for the upcoming series against England, albeit on trial basis.
We look at the things to look forward to from new DRS:
#1 Improved ball tracking technology
More batsmen are likely to be adjudged leg before when the opposition captain reviews a not-out decision under the new DRS rules. The protection given to the decision of on-field umpire's decision – 'the umpire's call' – has been reduced.
The point of impact of the ball hitting the pad has been increased on either side of the stumps by 1.9 cms which means that the zone of impact now would be from the edge of the stumps, which was previously from middle of the off stump to middle of the leg stump. Also, the zone of the ball tracking projection hitting the stumps has been increased.
As per the new rules, for the not out decisions to be overturned, the ball tracking projection needs to show more than half the ball hitting the stumps between outside the off stump and outside of the leg stump. This is different to the previous rule which was between middle of the off stump and middle of the leg stump.
In both the cases, i.e., the point of impact of ball hitting the pad and the ball tracking projection of ball hitting the stumps, the bottom of the bails limit has not changed.
This rule change has already had a great impact in the recently concluded Test series between England and Bangladesh where a lot of decisions were overturned, most of them being lbws.
#2 UltraEdge
UltraEdge is an upgrade over the Snickometer, with further enhancement to distinguish the various sounds on a more accurate basis.
The ball tracking system has been improved after an independent assessment by a team of engineers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). UltraEdge is the first technology to be tested at the ECB National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough, United Kingdom.
The path of the ball after hitting the pads is predicted by ultra-motion cameras with higher frame rates which make the system more reliable. According to the new DRS playing conditions, the manual interference to determine the point of impact of the ball hitting the pads is reduced with the help of UltraEdge.
Another flaw in the earlier DRS was the possibility of an operator missing a delivery and hence an lbw appeal could have been missed. But the introduction of UltraEdge along with the facility to store the data from every delivery helps if an operator fails to arm the tracking system.
This system has certainly made the DRS reliable.
#3 Hot Spot
Hot Spot is an infra-red imaging system used to determine if the ball has struck the batsman’s bat or pad. Two infra-red cameras on opposite sides of the ground above the field of play records the images.
Any suspected nick or bat/pad event can be confirmed by using the infrared image which shows a bright spot where the ball has made contact. This technology is used to enhance the decision-making accuracy of the on-field umpires, mostly in the case of leg before decisions or caught behind appeals.
Although Hot Spot has aided in making some tough calls, more often than not, it has created controversy. In the 2011 India-England series, Michael Vaughan accused Indian batsman VVSLaxman of applying vaseline to the edge of his bat to deceive Hot Spot. Rahul Dravid also fell victim to the inability of the technology to detect an edge thrice on the same tour.
Similar incidents took place after that which made this infra-red imaging system a point of debate.
With the introduction of UltraEdge, it remains to be seen whether Hot Spot will be required in future. This system can be used to assist UltraEdge.
Things will become crystal clear soon, as Hot Spot will not be used in the upcoming Test series between India and England and all the decisions will be made with the help of UltraEdge.
New DRS rules have already proved its worth and with so much cricket being played, it will be interesting to see whether it fulfils all the expectations. Fans will hope that cricket will be in the news for its entertainment and unpredictability and not for controversy related to DRS as has been the case before.
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