According to the sources, Now the TV Umpire can take a call on front-foot no-balls for all upcoming leading tournaments. This duty is handed over by ICC after a successful usage of front foot no–ball technology at this year’s Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia.
The big decision of employing such technology is based on the fact that during the 1st test between England and West Indies, there were 3 incidents where the 3rd umpire has overturned the 3 wickets by noticing the bowler’s front foot.
So the days are numbered for the on-filed umpire to decide on front-foot no-balls, hence this big transformation is underway and this new practice will be adopted for all upcoming International Cricket Council Matches.
Under this tech change, the TV umpire will monitor the front foot of the bowler with a Hawkeye Freezeframe then a super slow-motion replay. If he finds any unusual thing, he will relay the information to Central Umpire, through a buzzer whenever the bowler crosses the line.
At this juncture, the on-filed umpire unfurls their arm, until 8 seconds after the delivery. That will be well before the bowler gets back to his mark.
The governing body has confirmed the successful results of this tech which is used in 12 matches and out of the 4717 bowls, the 3rd umpire called 13 no-balls which is 0.28% of total deliveries. Quite an impressive result, isn’t it?
This tech is proved to be highly successful after its live test in Women’s T20 tournament, which was followed by 12 one day international matches.
Based on its quite impressive results, ICC has given approvals for using this tech in the inaugural World Cup Super League which was a 2 year ODI competition planned to be started in May 2020 till it was halted due to global pandemic.
Hence with a few more amends, the tech will be applied for the next men’s T20 World Cup, scheduled for Oct’2020 but it is highly likely to be pushed further as per ICC board’s decision on Monday.
