DRS was planned for semi-finals of Ranji Trophy, not quarters: BCCI general manager Saba Karim

The Board of Control for Cricket in India’s general manager of cricket Saba Karim on Tuesday said that limited use of Decision Review System was always planned for the Ranji Trophy semi-finals and not from the knockout stages.

The move to introduce limited DRS comes after the umpires committed some howlers in some knockout games of the previous season. However, the quarter-finals starting on Thursday will not see the use of DRS.

“We are introducing from the semi-finals. This the first time we have initiated this program, we wanted to bring in semi-finals and we have done that. It was never meant for the quarter-finals,” the former India wicketkeeper was quoted as saying by PTI.

“The whole idea is that we wanted to bring in the DRS wherein we can have uniformity for both the games and that will be in the semi-finals. All the four teams have been pitted equally and that would not have been possible before [in quarters],” he said.

The restricted technology for Ranji semis will not have Hawk Eye and Ultra Edge, two key components of the DRS used in international games.

“We will be using the technology which is available to us. We are looking at a very limited use of the DRS. We don’t have snickometer and ball tracking. We have red zone and we have spin vision and we will try and give whatever is available to umpires for them to decide,” added Karim.

In July, Karim had said the DRS will be used from knockouts.

“Last season, in some of the knockout matches, there was some flak on umpires because there were some terrible howlers. So we want to avoid all that and use whatever help we can get.

“For the knockouts in Ranji Trophy matches, we will utilise all the technology available to us as a means to apply the limited DRS to help the on-field umpires make the correct decision,” he had told ESPNcricinfo in July.