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Cricket Bytes: UDRS, Hot Spot,‘To The Point’ and Chahar, the new kid on the block

The mystery behind the non-adoption of the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) by the BCCI has been resolved.

It is the skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni who  is sceptical of the system’s merits. Dhoni believes that the system has had mixed results. Sehwag, in a recent interview, strongly supported adoption of UDRS. Rahul Dravid too has thrown his weight behind the review arrangement.

But the man whose word carries the most weight Sachin Tendulkar has not backed off from his opposition to the technology. Tendulkar prefers the competing technology —Hot Spot— that uses infra-red cameras to decide whether the ball has struck bat, pad or the batsman.

The basic UDRS system, currently in use, uses only the Hawk-Eye technology besides super slow-motion cameras and an audio feed from the stump microphone.

The Hawk-Eye is the same technology used in tennis to decide if the ball has struck the line.

Hot Spot is an improvement that is seldom used.

The ICC hope to make the UDRS mandatory for all Test series in the near future.

The Proteas  wish to use the system during the upcoming tour by India but are being pressurised  by the BCCI to stick to the tried-and-tested arbitration via manual umpiring.

When the top two cricketing heroes in the team put their foot down, the BCCI is bound to follow their lead.

Herschelle Gibbs has crawled out of the woodwork and into the limelight — albeit a controversial and notorious one with the release of his autobiography ‘To The Point’.

The opener has made some stunning revelations about his tenure with the South African team , rambled on about sex orgies, his relationship with his former captain Hansie Cronje, and threats from the Delhi police when cross-questioned by them about the match-fixing scandal. Though the sex-laced chapter has hit the headlines more often than not, Gibbs has been hugely critical of the cliquish South African team and current captain Graeme Smith in the remainder of the book.

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