How to Fool ‘ Hot Spot ’
The renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) has undertaken research into how the use of silicone tape on bats can prevent ‘ Hot Spot ’ from detecting faint edges . They have proposed that this can give batsmen a way of ‘ beating the system ’. MIT found that applying silicone tape to a bat can prevent less significant edges showing on the thermal imaging technology .
Warren Brennan , the man behind Hot Spot , has encouraged ICC to ban the use of silicone tape , which is more commonly used to repair damage to a bat . The issue of silicone tape came to prominence in 2013 when , during that year ’ s Ashes series , a number of edges were detected by the audio sensor Snickometer , and not by Hot Spot . The fallout from this went as far as the legal courts where former England batsman Kevin Pietersen successfully sued against reports that he was using silicone tape in a deliberate attempt to hoodwink the Hot Spot system . MIT ’ s investigation also found that the ball tracking technology used as part of the Decision Review System can have an error of up to four centimetres when predicting the height of a ball ’ s bounce .
MIT has handed its findings to ICC ’ s Cricket Committee who will discuss them in greater depth at its next meeting .
ECB ACO Umpire Makes History
ECB ACO member Sue Redfern made history in May when , alongside Jacqueline Williams , she became part of the first all-women umpiring team to stand in a men ’ s international when she stood in the Nigeria and Tanzania match in the World Cricket League Division 5 . Sue has been helping break barriers since she started umpiring and we hope that she is the first of many women umpires who make the transition from the recreational to international game .
Review of the Review System
A review of the Decision Review System is due to take place with a proposal that the benefit of the doubt afforded to the batsman in LBW referrals is to be reduced .
Currently , at least half the ball has to be hitting between the inside half of leg stump and off stump for a Not Out decision to be overturned . The ICC Cricket Committee discussed changing this rule so that half the ball had to be hitting 25 % of the leg stump or off stump to allow a decision to be overturned . Mahela Jayawardene , the former Sri Lankan captain , believes that this change would have resulted in 75 % of reviews deemed as umpire ’ s call , in Test matches using DRS , would have been given out . Endorsing Jayawardene ’ s comments , his former teammate Kumar Sangakkara stated his belief that it ’ s time ‘ the ICC got rid of umpire ’ s call ’, going on to say ‘ if the ball is hitting the stumps it should be out on review , regardless of the umpire ’ s decision ’.
Spirit of Cricket in 2016 , either through outstanding sportsmanship , fair play or respect for opponents and umpires .
Derek Brewer , MCC Chief Executive , said : ‘ These awards have been running for a number of years now and the conduct of the winners is always very impressive .’
We all like to promote the Spirit of Cricket and anything rewarding those who go above and beyond their responsibilities is great to see . We look forward to celebrating the winner when they are announced .
Christopher Martin-Jenkins – Spirit of Cricket Awards
Named after the late , great , BBC commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins ( CMJ ), the MCC and BBC have opened nominations for the 2016 CMJ Spirit of Cricket Awards . The criteria for nominees is that they must have exhibited the
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