In the midst of the 2022 Ranji Trophy final between Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh, many reports regarding the use of the Decision Review System in India’s premier competition have appeared. According to a number of Indian news sources, the BCCI has determined that using the DRS technology is costly. During the 2019–2020 season, the BCCI has experimented with “restricted DRS.”
A BCCI official said that employing the system is a costly endeavour when asked about the absence of DRS and its potential influence on the game’s remaining 4 days. The board intends to avoid spending money and to have confidence in its umpires for the full final.
“It’s an expensive exercise to use the DRS. The costs shoot up. How does it matter if there’s no DRS in the final. It’s time we trusted the umpires. India’s two best umpires (KN Ananthapadmanabhan and Virender Sharma) are officiating in this game. And what’s the end result? If you use it in the final, you will want to introduce it in the league stage of the Ranji Trophy too,” a former India player told TOI.
“The rigging (wiring) and derigging of all the equipment will be extremely costly. HawkEye means extra cameras are needed. Ranji is done with limited equipment. The argument will then be that why not for all televised games. Look, you can’t have a half-baked DRS. The last time, it was used for limited replays to see if there’s an edge or not. You can’t use the ball trajectory – a critical element of DRS,” a source familiar with the situation stated.
