Although the Board of Control for Cricket in India has given its nod to implement the DRS in the upcoming five-match Test series against England, it has barred the use of HotSpot. The cricket board had always expressed their reservation over the system but decided to go ahead with it in the series on a ‘trial basis’.
According to reports in Mumbai Mirror, the HotSpot technology can be considered for the Border-Gavaskar series next year. As per the rules, the DRS must have Hawkeye and the latest Ultra Edge components which help in the decisions of LBW, bat-pad and close-in catches. But the Hotspot, which is an infra-red imaging system used to determine whether the ball has struck the batsman, bat or pad, is not compulsory and is not used in the series because the BCCI has not bought it in time.
As per the report, the technology had to be imported from Australia but it did not materialise due to certain reasons. The camera used in this system are of very high quality and they have patented by an Australian company named BBG Sports.
Regretting the failure to provide the technology in time for the series, Warren Brennan of BBG Sports said: “I am extremely disappointed that we are unable to provide Hotspot for the India-England series. These are very high end, extremely sensitive military grade cameras. Our company also has to apply for special licenses from the Australian Government to ship these cameras around the world.”
In absence of HotSpot, UltraEdge will help the umpires to find out about the ‘frame of impact’. The BCCI, which has always remained reluctant to implement the DRS, was convinced to use it in the upcoming series only after seeing the new technology which was implemented in the game in 2015.
“Manual intervention to set the impact point has been controlled by the introduction of the ‘UltraEdge’, which has been approved by MIT and will help in determining the frame of impact. UltraEdge also ensures that post impact balls do not affect the predicted path or impact point and hence the accuracy has been improved,” a BCCI release said after agreeing to go ahead with the implementation of DRS.