ICC to use front-foot no-ball technology for the upcoming Women's T20 World Cup

On-field Umpires missing the front-foot no-balls has been one of the most talked-about issues in world cricket in the past year or so. There has been a growing demand for the use of TV Umpire and technology for adjudicating no ball by cricketers, pundits in the recent past.

And, now the International Cricket Council has made a significant move as it announced that the on-field umpire will no longer call no-balls in the upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup that starts in Australia from February 21.

Instead, the third umpire will have the onus of monitoring bowler’s front-foot on television and if the bowler oversteps, instruct the on-field umpire to call it a no-ball.

“Cricket has an excellent track record of introducing technology to support the decision making of our match officials and I’m confident that this technology will reduce the small number of front foot no-ball errors at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup,” the ICC’s General Manager Cricket, Geoff Allardice, said in a statement as quoted by cricket.com.au.

“No-balls are difficult for umpires to call accurately, and even though the percentage of deliveries that are no-balls is low, it is important to call them correctly,” he added.

The move comes after 3 successful trials of the technology

Several high-profile no-ball misjudgements had led to the ICC trialling the system during the T20I series between India and West Indies back in December during which a total of 4717 balls were bowler and 13 no-balls (0.28 per cent of deliveries) were called. All deliveries were judged accurately according to the ICC.

“Since we first trialled this concept in the ODI series between England and Pakistan in 2016 the technology has improved significantly, enabling us to introduce it cost-effectively, and with minimum impact on the flow of the game.” Geoff Alardice revealed.

That said, the on-field umpire will still be responsible for calling other type of no-balls- such as when a bowler delivers a waist-high full-toss. And, while the method is set to be implemented in the upcoming Women’s T20 World Cup, it will be interesting to see whether the concept extends to all International matches in the future.

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