India agreed Monday to a modified version of the controversial Umpire Decision Review System, bringing to an end a damaging row which threatened to tear apart international cricket. The International Cricket Council said its chief executives’ committee (CEC) had unanimously agreed at its Hong Kong conference to make DRS mandatory in all international Tests and one-day matches, India’s cricket authorities announced.
“The agreed standards will include infra-red cameras and audio-tracking devices,” the ICC said in a statement on its website. “The CEC also agreed that further independent and expert research will be carried out into ball-tracking technology and its accuracy and reliability. “The continued use of ball-tracking technology as a decision-making aid will depend on bilateral agreement between the participating members.” The ground-breaking deal means that India will, for the first time, agree to using the DRS in a Test series when they tour England from July. But the world champions released a statement after the meeting insisting that the Hawkeye ball-tracking system remained “unacceptable”. “The BCCI has always expressed its willingness to embrace technology, for the betterment of the game,” said Narayanaswami Srinivasan, the president-elect of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, in a statement posted on its website. Hot Spot, the “thermal imaging” technology now available and made mandatory in the DRS, will mostly be used for close catches and edges. But the committee decided that the use of Hawkeye, which tracks the trajectory of the delivery, would continue to depend on agreement between both teams in any match. Lbw decisions will continue to be governed by the on-field umpires. Under the agreement, teams will be allowed to make one incorrect challenge to an on-field umpire’s decision before all their referrals for that innings are used up. A two-challenge system, broadly accepted by most of cricket’s leading nations, was in use at the recent World Cup in the subcontinent, which India won. The BCCI had questioned the accuracy of the technology involved in the DRS and Monday’s deal marks a significant concession from the world champions, who have been opposed almost from the moment of the system’s inception in 2009.
India had been adamant that they wanted no part of DRS in their four-Test tour of England and a controversial lbw decision during the rivals’ tied World Cup match, where England’s Ian Bell was given not out even though replays suggested he was in fact lbw, seemed to have hardened their stance. But Dave Richardson, the ICC’s general manager for cricket, had said following a two-day meeting of the ICC’s cricket committee at Lord’s in May he was confident of changing India’s mind. India, whose financial clout in world cricket gives them huge bargaining power among the Test-playing nations, have often drawn criticism for what has been seen as their unhealthy influence on the global game.