The umpire decision review system is arguably the biggest advancement since covered pitches. But its future will remain in doubt until the ICC gets on the front foot and establishes a firm policy on its use. Cricket writer Adrian Seconi reports.
If ducking for cover were an Olympic sport, the ICC would be good for gold.
Cricket's world governing body introduced the umpire decision review system (UDRS) two years ago but has been quick to shift responsibility for its funding, claiming the bill should be footed by the member unions.
It is debatable whether the cost is the real issue.
The money involved is significant but pales in comparison to the sums involved in the ICC-sanctioned Indian Premier League.
Perhaps it has less to do with finances and more to do with a lack of political will.
Not everybody supports the UDRS, most notably the powerful Indian lobby.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has not exactly embraced it, and prominent Indian players Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni have expressed concerns about the use and reliability of the technology.
Maybe there is a more sinister reason, too.
A cynic might suggest it is a lot harder to fix certain aspects of the game with more and more cameras trained on the playing area.
It is another obstacle for the bookies to get around.
But whatever the reasons, it has left world cricket in a confusing state, where games are played under different sets of conditions.
The UDRS is not being used in the New Zealand-Pakistan series, for example, but it was used during the Ashes series in Australia.
It is far from an ideal situation.
The ICC needs to act quickly to protect the integrity of the game by establishing a uniform policy on its use or abandoning it altogether, Animation Research Limited (ARL) managing director Ian Taylor says.
Taylor's Dunedin-based company is a leading computer graphics firm.
Its signature product, Virtual Eye, and rival Hawk-Eye have helped raise the bar in terms of broadcasting, and it is that technology that the third umpire uses when an on-field umpire's decision is referred.
So Taylor has a stake in the UDRS.
But his client (Sky in New Zealand and the Nine Network in Australia) is the broadcaster and the company gets paid whether the ICC fork out or not.
Taylor is, in a sense, the middle man in the debate over who should pay for the use of the technology, and he has some interesting insights.
"It makes no sense that you would have an official umpiring review system that only gets used in some games," he said.
"They [the ICC] need to decide whether they are going to use it or not. There should not be a situation where some countries use it and some don't. They need to adopt a uniform policy.
"[Two years ago] the ICC stepped up and said, `Right, we want to use this technology for umpire reviewing.' But no-one gave any consideration to what extra costs that involved or who should be paying for it.
Furthermore, Taylor warned the ICC that if the technology was going to be used in making decisions that could alter the outcome of a game, then a lot more money had to be spent on research and development.
"With the responsibility of DRS ... you've got to be as accurate as you can be, which means you have to continue to invest. Right now, there is no incentive at all to do that other than to protect your reputation.
"The only reason we are doing it at the moment is because we don't want to make a mistake and look stupid. The best way to deal with that is to say we won't put our reputation on the line again.
"The ICC need to take a leadership role in this because no-one is talking to each other."
ARL improved the speed of its ball-tracking technology from 110 frames per second to 230 frames, basically because the ICC wanted to use predictive path technology to see if the ball was going on to hit or miss the stumps.
At 230 frames per second, the computer has more information to make more accurate predictions.
So those leg before wicket decisions, which can be curly at best, are now quite simple for the third umpire, thanks to predictive path graphics.
But that technology cost about $250,000 million to develop.
Companies like ARL find it hard to justify spending that sort of money with all the current uncertainty surrounding the future of the UDRS.
While the ICC has been reluctant to pay for it, broadcasters such as Sky and the Nine Network have continued to use the technology.
The poor old umpires are stuck in the middle, trying to make the best possible decision with the naked eye, while the viewer at home gets to chuckle when they get it wrong.
International umpire Billy Bowden believes the UDRS "is the best thing since coloured clothing was introduced".
In an email to the Otago Daily Times, he described it as a positive step forward.
"Umpires are scrutinised and analysed intensely these days so it makes sense to utilise the technology to help umpires make better and more correct decisions," he wrote.
"Personally, it's given me confidence knowing that, if I make an error, then 99% of the time it will be corrected ... and the game moves on. It's a positive outcome for all concerned.
"The majority of the international umpires that I have spoken to embrace the UDRS concept and I would be happy for it to be used in every test. But that is a call for others to make.
"[The UDRS] is like wearing a life jacket on a boat. In a perfect world, you would never need it. But if you fall off the boat, you're glad it's there, right?"
