NEW DELHI: IPL chairman Rajeev Shukla confirmed on Wednesday that the Decision Review System (DRS) will be implemented for the first time in the history of the Indian Premier League.
“Yes, this idea has been going around for many years,” said Shukla at a press conference in Mumbai, confirming that the TV replay system will be utilised if a team challenges an umpiring decision.
Each team is given one chance to review an umpiring decision during a T20 innings at the international level. With this decision, IPL will now become the second T20 league in the world – after Pakistan Super League (PSL) – to adopt the technology that helps to reduce the umpiring howlers.
Shukla was speaking to the media after announcing that the T20 League has inked a three-year deal with Tata Nexon as its partner, declaring there was “great synergy between IPL and Tata Nexon.”
It was also announced that the player with the best strike rate in each IPL game will be rewarded and a Nexon car will be awarded to the player with the overall highest strike-rate in the entire tournament, set to run from April 7 to May 27.
The decision to use the system in IPL 2018reportedly came after the board held a meeting in Visakhapatnam last December, where the top ten umpires from the domestic fold were briefed about the technology by Denis Burns, the ICC umpires’ coach and former Australia pacer-turned umpire Paul Reiffel.
The Board, which for years had been strict in their stance against the use of the referral system, finally embraced the technology during England’s tour of India in 2016.