Captains disagree on ball-tracking technology

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

LONDON, (Reuters) – England captain Andrew Strauss  expressed reservations yesterday about the decision to  dispense with ball-tracking technology during the four-test  series against India starting at Lord’s today.

Andrew Strauss

The Indian cricket board has refused to accept any  ball-tracking technology in the series which means players will  be not be able to ask for reviews of leg-before-wicket  decisions. Both governing bodies must agree before the system  can be used.

Strauss told a news conference he thought the Decision  Review System (DRS) had worked well over the past 12 to 18  months.

“I think we are getting more decisions right as a result of  it,” he said. “It’s a good thing but as it happens we can’t use  the full DRS in this series.

“We are going to have to deal with the kind of halfway house  we’ve got at the moment. I don’t think it’s ideal but that’s the  situation we face ourselves with.”

Strauss’s counterpart Mahendra Singh Dhoni said the Indians  were not 100 percent convinced about the reliability of  ball-tracking technology to show whether a ball would have hit  the stumps.

“Until we are 100 percent satisfied we will not really go  with something that is not 100 percent satisfactory to our  views,” he said.

An International Cricket Council (ICC) statement released on  Wednesday said the minimum standards of infra-red technology and  stump microphones would be used during the series to help  adjudicate on catches.

ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat said it was common  knowledge that the world governing body and the England and  Wales Cricket Board would have liked ball tracking to allow lbw  decisions to be reviewed.

“The last chief executives committee and board meeting in  Hong Kong agreed to independently confirm the accuracy of  ball-tracking technology. This will now take place as a matter  of urgency,” he said.

BROAD OR BRESNAN?   

Both captains said they had decided on their final XI for  the 2000th test and the 100th between the two countries but both  declined to say who had been included.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni

Pace bowlers Stuart Broad and Tim Bresnan will be competing  for the final spot in the England team. Broad left the Ashes  tour of Australia early because of injury and failed to make an  impact against Sri Lanka earlier in the English summer.

“I am pretty clear,” said Strauss. “It’s a tough decision,  all 12 players in the squad have got very strong merits to  playing the final XI.”

Strauss was at pains to point out that Broad’s role in the  side was not that of an enforcer employed to bowl primarily  short-pitched deliveries.

“Stuart Broad’s role in the side is not fundamentally  different from anyone else. He’s there to bang out a length  consistently and work in conjunction with the other bowlers as a  bowling group to take wickets,” he said.

“One aspect of his game which I think gives him a little bit  of an edge is that he’s got a very good bouncer, he can make  life difficult for batsmen with the short ball but that doesn’t  mean that he’s the enforcer all the time.”

“It just means that occasionally there might be spells in  which he goes short.”

Strauss, whose team can overtake India as the world’s top  side if they win the series by a two-match margin, said no side  had been better than England over the past two years.

“Ultimately our goal over the long term is not just to be  the side that on the rankings is number one but to be the side  that everyone generally agrees is the number one. That’s still a  long-term goal. Nothing changes whether we win or not,” he said.

Dhoni, unbeaten in 10 series as captain, said every series  was important to a team who also won the 50 overs World Cup this  year.

“Each and every game I play is tough and every series is a  chance to prove ourselves as cricketers and prove ourselves as a  team,” he said.