Filed under Cricket Rules & Laws

A ball is bowled and batsman plays a shot.. an appeal is made (for lbw, caught behind etc) and within seconds - onfield umpire signals 'out' or 'not out'.

An umpire - a human, is prone to making mistakes as they take decisions in split seconds. but, on Television - Hawk Eye and Hot Spot coupled with extreme computerized technology and heavy lensed cameras PREDICT that umpire's decision was wrong.

Now match after match, cricket audiences around the world feel cricket umpires are not good enough. ICC had to fix this conflict and they've come up with rule of challenging umpires decision with the help of third umpire who now will watch the hawk eye videos and assist onfield umpires to change their decision - if required!!

Umpire decision review system Rule :
**On field captain, or the batsman concerned can challenge the umpires decision & third umpire will then judge the decision.
**You challenge right - fine. but if your challenge is denied (Third umpire says onfield umpire's decision was right) - you lose one challenge. Note that only 2 challenges per innings is allowed for both the teams.

The Process : First, check whether it wasn't a no ball. Then, the hawkeye shows line of ball upto the point of impact (no further). Hotspot technology is not being used as of now as it's not available with all broadcasters, but it soon will be included to help out the umpires.

Q = What kind of decisions are judged?
A = Mainly decisions like whether batsman had edged the ball or not and lbw decisions.. note that third umpire only considers the balls' impact and not the Hawk Eye predictor.

Update (16 October 2008)
First started in August 2008 with India vs Srilanka test series - this umpire decision challenging system will again be under tail process in four new test series in 2009 (viz India vs Australia, West Indies vs New Zealand, West Indies vs England and South Africa vs Australia) before ICC does another meeting in April/May 2009 for further improvements into this rule to finally making it a permanent cricket rule!!

Update (November 2009)
Umpire decision review system (UDRS) becomes a full time test match rule.

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