Referral system not to be tried at England-SA series
LONDON, June 7: The planned experiment of umpire referrals won’t take place during England’s home Test series against South Africa in July after the boards could not agree on the finer details.
There is a concern among the players over testing the system in such a high-profile series and continued worries about undermining the on-field umpires.
The next possible series to use the technology, which will include Hawk-Eye, would be the India-Sri Lanka series later in July.
The inventors of Hawk-Eye, led by Paul Hawkins, have tested the accuracy of the system and maintain it has a margin of error of just 5mm.
However, the ICC has decided that only the tracking part of the software will be used, up to the point the ball hits the pad, rather than the predictive element of the package.
This will make decisions involving whether the batsman has been hit in line with off stump, or where the ball has pitched, clearer, but leaves it in the umpires’ jurisdiction to judge the path of the ball towards the stumps.—Agencies