'Hot spot's success rate is 90-95%'

NEW DELHI: The world cricket governing body (ICC) may have embraced Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) without Hawk Eye, but two other technologies Hot Spot and Virtual Eye, two of the systems that will be used to help the umpires make decisions, have exposed their limitations.
"I don't think it is 100%," Warren Brennan, the chief executive of BBG Sports, the Australian firm providing Hot Spot, told a cricket website.
The technology helps to detect edges and is now a must for UDRS. According to Brennan, impact on the gloves and certain light conditions late in the day are the two areas in Hot Spot technology. However, he added that the technology has achieved a 90 to 95% success rate so far.
Another system of tracking the ball - Virtual Eye - which is used for adjudging leg-before-wicket decisions, also confronts the technical challenges at the next level. A level, where there won't be any fingers raised over an LBW decision.
"Our job is to take the technology to a level where the umpires never need to doubt us, and even if they do that would suggest that we haven't got there yet," Ian Taylor, the chief executive of Virtual Eye, also told the website.
Last week, after much deliberation on the UDRS issue, the ICC decided to stick to the UDRS in an amended form thanks to strong resistance from the Indian cricket board (BCCI). However, the BCCI was always in favour of Hot Spot.
"Things off the glove can be a bit of a hit and miss. There is padding on the gloves, which is obviously quite soft and other parts of the glove probably have some metal, usually on the side of the fingers. We get different heat impressions off the glove as the metal heats up, the impact doesn't leave a great heat signature when the ball strikes the softer part of the glove," Brennan was quoted as saying in the website.
This technology also has a problem like 'solar flare' - when and if the sun is low and the bat turns in a manner like it's a mirror to it. This is the condition where "an object in the picture is moving faster than anything else in the frame."
"We saw that in England recently with (Tharanga) Paranavitana. We were certain he got a very faint edge but because the bat was swinging through quite quickly, the picture was blurry for several frames until the bat slowed down and stopped and then it was quite obvious to us," Brennan said.
As of now, Hot Spot will be used in the India-England series, and with more advanced technology. "We've just finished setting up two new cameras. These cameras have much faster frame rates and much better optics and I'm confident that at Lord's we'll get significantly better performance than our older cameras."
Ball-tracking has been downgraded to an optional part of the UDRS and Virtual Eye's Taylor said while many apprehensions about its reliability were valid, they could be alleviated by investing in more advanced technology.