Agreement on DRS after Hot Spot is made mandatory

The ICC's chief executives' committee has unanimously agreed to make a modified version of the Decision Review System (DRS) mandatory in all international matches. The mandatory terms and conditions for the DRS that have now been recommended to the Executive Board for approval on Tuesday will now consist of "thermal imaging" and "sound technology" with the "ball-tracker" having been removed from the ICC's original compulsory list of DRS technologies.

This means that India will, for the first time since 2008, be agreeable to using the DRS in a bilateral series when it tours England from July onwards.

However the DRS used in the England-India series will be without the Hawk-Eye ball-tracker which means line decisions for lbw appeals cannot be referred. For example, if the ball pitches outside leg stump and the batsman is given out lbw, the lack of ball-tracking technology means he cannot question the decision. On the other hand, if a batsman is given out lbw and he thinks there is an inside-edge involved, he can get the decision reviewed since Hot Spot can resolve whether there is an edge.

Hot Spot, the "thermal imaging" technology now available and made mandatory in the DRS, will mostly be used for close-in catches and edges.

The committee also decided that the continued use of the ball-tracking technology as a decision-making aid, will depend on the bilateral arrangement between the participating teams.

A decision about how the cost of using the DRS technology would be divided will be taken later. Last week, BCCI vice-president Niranjan Shah had said that the cost of using the DRS was as high as $60,000 per match. According to the ICC, however, that figure is close to $5000 per day, with a maximum of $25,000 being spent on DRS per Test.