On Monday, International Cricket Council (ICC) went on to announce that the Front-foot no-ball technology will be used for the first time in a global cricket tournament later this month during the women’s T20 World Cup in Australia. The television umpire will be monitoring the landing position of the front foot of the bowler after every ball and tell the on-field umpires if a bowler oversteps.
In recent times, there have been a plethora of occasions when the umpires had to call back batsmen following TV replays which have revealed no balls. But the ICC said recent trials in India and the West Indies of using a TV umpire for every ball resulted in 100 percent of 4,717 deliveries being judged accurately.
In the statement regarding the same, the ICC said, “The third umpire will monitor the front foot landing position after each ball and communicate to the on-field umpire if the delivery was a no-ball.”
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The ICC said the technology was recently put on trial across 12 games, during which 4,717 balls were bowled and 13 no balls were called. All deliveries were judged accurately.
On the other hand, ICC general manager Geoff Allardice said, “Cricket has an excellent track record of introducing technology to support the decision making of our match officials and I’m confident that this technology will reduce the small number of the front foot no-ball errors at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.”
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He further added, “No balls are difficult for umpires to call accurately, and even though the percentage of deliveries that are no balls is low, it is important to call them correctly. Since we first trialed this concept in the ODI series between England and Pakistan in 2016 the technology has improved significantly, enabling us to introduce it cost-effectively, and with minimum impact on the flow of the game.”
The women’s T20 World Cup is scheduled to commence on February 21 and the final of the tournament will be played on women’s day, March 8.
