What’s the story?
The chief executives’ committee of the International Cricket Council (ICC) has given a green signal to all the recommendations made by the ICC’s cricket committee in May. As per the approval, the Decision Review System (DRS) will now be effective in all T20I games from 1st October and teams will not lose a review when an LBW call is returned as Umpire's Call.
The recommendation of limiting the bat size for all batsmen has also been approved.
"Many of the top players' bats have edges of between 38mm and 42mm, but there are some which have edges of up to 50mm, which was felt to be excessive and in need of restriction," the governing body had earlier highlighted.
In case you didn’t know...
The ICC’s Cricket Committee had made a host of recommendations to the international board in its annual meeting in May this year. Almost all the recommendations have been approved, and these will come to effect from October 1.
The other members of the committee were Clare Connor, Adrian Griffiths, Rahul Dravid, David Kendix, Mahela Jayawardene, Richard Kettleborough, Tim May, Darren Lehman, Ranjan Madugalle, Kevin O'Brien, John Stephenson, Shaun Pollock, David White and Andrew Strauss.
The heart of the matter
Among the other major recommendations approved is the restriction on the size of the bat, which cannot exceed 108mm in width, 67mm in depth and 40mm at the edge. Also, umpires will now enjoy the authority to send-off players from the field on grounds of misconduct.
Once the player is sent off, he/she will be prohibited from taking part in the remainder of the game, in all formats. The third major change says that the batsman will be not dismissed if their bat bounces after being grounded behind the stumps.
What’s next?
The DRS technology, and the new recommendations, will be used in the game for years to come. When they are all implemented from October 1, it will be interesting to see how well the players can adapt themselves to these.
Author’s take
The introduction of the DRS in T20 cricket is a welcome change to avoid the repeated blunders we have seen umpires make in the recent games. It will help in reducing howlers and moreover, the game's pace will not be affected in any manner and the wickets will be adjudged after cent percent correct evaluation. Both the on-field umpires and the teams will largely benefit from this.
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