'Limited' DRS to be introduced in Ranji Trophy Knockouts for 2019-20 season

In what could potentially be a groundbreaking move for domestic cricket in India, the BCCI have decided to introduce 'limited' DRS for the knockout matches of the upcoming Ranji Trophy season. The Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), finalized the decision for the usage of 'limited' DRS for the upcoming season.

The decision comes on the wake of a string of appaling umpiring decisions and howlers, which were seen throughout the course of the 2018/19 season. The most notable one, however, was seen in the semi-final, when Indian ace batsman Cheteshwar Pujara was incorrectly ruled "not out" not once, but twice, against Karnataka. Pujara, who eventually went on to score 131 in that encounter, ended up knocking Karnataka out from the Ranji Trophy. 

The standards of umpiring within the domestic circuit have been criticized time and again over the course of the last few seasons, and the introduction of DRS would be a welcome move for the competition. 

“The CoA was informed that there have been some grievances raised regarding some poor umpiring decisions in domestic matches. It was recommended that introducing a limited Decision Review System (DRS) in some of the digitized/ televised domestic matches would reduce occurrence of such poor umpiring decisions,” CoA decision in the minutes of the meeting posted on BCCI website read, reported news18. 

“After some discussion, the CoA accepted the recommendation of introducing limited DRS for domestic matches at the knock out stage,” it further stated.

BCCI General Manager (Cricketing Operations) Saba Karim confirmed that the board will go ahead with the plan for the 2019-20 season.

"The CoA have given go-ahead of the plan to ensure that there are no howlers on the field. We will discuss how we can implement this ‘limited’ DRS after talks with umpires, match referees, official broadcasters and others. The fine points will be finalized over the course of the next few months,” Karim was quoted as saying to CricetNext.

The term 'limited' DRS would mean that the umpires would get a chance to take a second look at the decisions, by looking at real-time and slow-motion replays. Due to the cost constraints that come along with it, features like "ball-tracking" and "ultra edge" would not be used. The main aim of the 'limited' DRS is set to be to eliminate blatant howlers from matches. 

“By limited DRS we mean that TV umpires can review a dismissal or a decision through TV replays. Based on that if they can overturn a decision, they can recommend that to the on-field umpires. Since other technology is not available to the broadcasters for the domestic games, we’ll make best use of whatever resources that we have at our disposal,” Karim added.