The limited use of Decision Review System (DRS) was always in the plans for the Ranji Trophy semifinals but it was not planned from the knockout stages, admitted BCCI’s general manager of cricket Saba Karim on Tuesday. The plan to introduce limited DRS comes in place after the umpires committed some big mistakes in some of the knockout games in the previous season. However, the quarterfinals starting on Thursday will not have the benefit of DRS.

“We are introducing from the semifinals. This the first time we have initiated this program, we wanted to bring in semifinals and we have done that. It was never meant for the quarterfinals,” Karim told PTI.

“The whole idea is that we wanted to bring in the DRS wherein we can have uniformity for both the games and that will be in the semifinals. All the four teams have been pitted equally and that would not have been possible before (in quarters),” he further said.

The restricted use of the technology for Ranji trophy semi-finals will not have the Hawk-Eye and Ultra Edge as well, two key components of the DRS which is used in international games.

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“We will be using the technology which is available to us. We are looking at a very limited use of the DRS. We don’t have snickometer and ball tracking. We have red zone and we have spin vision and we will try and give whatever is available to umpires for them to decide,” added Saba Karim.

In July, Karim had said that the DRS will be used from knockout stages as well.

“Last season, in some of the knockout matches, there was some flak on umpires because there were some terrible howlers. So we want to avoid all that and use whatever help we can get. For the knockouts in Ranji Trophy matches, we will utilise all the technology available to us as a means to apply the limited DRS to help the on-field umpires make the correct decision,” he had earlier said to ESPNcricinfo in July.