'A hospital without a doctor'

After a lot of criticism over poor broadcast in the previous editions of the Bangladesh Premier League (BPL), the governing council had promised of ensuring better quality this time around with the inclusion of latest technologies.

The organisers have included the Decision Review System (DRS) and also introduced spidercam in the sixth edition of the tournament, but surprisingly there is no hotspot, snickometer or even ultra edge technology to support the DRS, creating a lot of confusion regarding decision referrals.

There was one such confusion during the Comilla Victorians versus Sylhet Sixers game yesterday where Sylhet pacer Al Amin Hossain immediately asked for a review after a caught-behind appeal against Steve Smith which the on-field umpire initially denied.

In absence of snickometer and ultra edge technology, it was almost impossible for the third umpire to decide whether there was an edge with the help of just the ultra motion. After looking at a few replays, which however did not seem too conclusive, the third umpire eventually decided to give Smith out.

According to Comilla coach Mohammad Salahuddin, the BPL governing council had informed the franchisees before the tournament about the absence of snickometer and ultra edge technology, citing high expense of those technologies. However, Salahuddin felt it was time to have such technologies installed considering the standard of the tournament.

"The organisers informed us before the start of the tournament about the absence of snickometer in DRS as it is expensive to include those technologies. We did raise the point that there won't be any benefit of the DRS without those technologies as doubts will still remain over few decisions.

"I think the time is right that for technologies to be included in the BPL as we have become a middle income country," said Salahuddin.

According to BPL technical committee chairman Jalal Younus, the organisers will include snickometer within the next three to four days.

"There was confusion whether there would be snickometer or ultra motion, but the broadcasters eventually opted for the latter one. However the ultra motion technology does not seem to help that much so we have decided to include snickometer. As the technology will be brought from England, it will take another three to four days," Jalal told The Daily Star.

Meanwhile, there was a tweet from a fan over the current DRS system in the BPL which read: "Without snickometer in DRS it's is like a hospital without a doctor."