Cricket is one of the sports that have a huge craze among people all over the world. After Football, Cricket is the most popular game in the world. And the game is growing with the time. Recently, we all had noticed the level of excitement among the cricket fans during the Champions Trophy.

With the craze and interest, ICC is continuously working on making the cricket watching experience better for the viewers. In this regard, the ICC has come up with the new implementations including the DRS.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Friday had approved a series of rule changes in international cricket that will come into effect from October 1, 2017. It approved all the recommendations made by the ICC Cricket Committee in May, in areas related to bat sizes and the Decision Review System (DRS), to name a few.

DRS and Umpire’s Call:

As per the suggestions by several council members during the last ICC meeting in May, it has been decided that the teams will not be losing their reviews if the review is lost by an ‘umpire’s call’ verdict.

What does ‘Umpire’s Call’ mean?

This concept affects Leg Before Wicket (LBW) decisions. When an LBW decision is reviewed, the benefit of the doubt goes to the on-field umpire’s original decision. Therefore, the television umpire would have to support the on-field judgment if projections show half the ball hitting a zone that stretches from the outside edge of the off stump to the outside edge of the leg stump. This is the margin of error afforded to the “umpire’s call”.

Ball-tracking technology can never be 100% in determining whether the ball would have hit the stumps or not, or shaved it. Therefore, the on-field umpire’s call is important. Now, the ICC has decided that if an LBW review comes with the verdict of ‘umpire’s call’, then it would not be fair to penalize the team that called for the review.

The 80 over top-up of reviews in Test cricket has been removed. The committee also approved the minimum standards for the use of DRS for international cricket. This includes the mandatory use of accredited ball tracking and edge detection technology.

ICC has decided to implement some rules regarding the size of bats, on-field behavior, and run outs.

• Regarding the bat size, it has been declared that measurements will have the limit of 108mm in width, 67 mm in depth and 40mm at the edge.
• On-field behavior will be checked and if any player indulges in misconduct, the umpires will have the right to send them out of the game. The ICC quoted, “All members have agreed to implement this in full.”

Also, a new rule regarding the run outs has been implemented. It says that the batsmen will be declared not out if their bat bounces after being grounded behind the crease line. The rules will come into effect from October 1 this year.

Well, we support all the new rules by ICC. What about you? Do you like the new rules? Share your views with us in the comments section below.