I'll say one thing though. the IPL, IMHO, is a disaster waiting to happen. It has become too big too quickly, essentially a bubble. Most IPL teams are worth more than some top English premiership teams. So the revenue necessary to justify these investments has to be enormous. and if such revenue cannot be generated the IPL bubble will burst and there might be substantial ramifications for international cricket. I am telling this as someone who has experience in the equities market.
I'm not as sure about it as to predict that this will definitely happen. But it is one of my worst fears. I fear it not because the IPL will collapse, but because it will have a disastrous affect on the finances of cricket as a whole.
I suppose I'm going to be thoroughly unpopular on this board; but the truth is that I for one am delighted with the BCCI stand on UDRS. In fact I think it is one of the best things for test cricket that the BCCI have ever done.
To me, UDRS as it is proposed to be implemented today is an abomination. A system which forces a batsman who has faintly nicked a ball and which has been well-caught, and who knows it very well, into thinking: "Now will this technology be able to show that I had nicked it?". One which rewards a batsman who would decide to challenge the correct decision of the umpire even when he knows it is correct; one which punishes a batsman who would just walk away when he is declared out and knows that he is out. One which places a premium on the totally anti-cricketing (to me) skill of disputing the decision of the umpire.
One that which induces an umpire to think: "I am not one hundred percent certain that the ball pitched in line with the stumps. Now let me see, the fielding team still has the right to question the umpires decision, and if i give it not out I may be made to look foolish. The batting team has no reviews left; at least I won't be subject to immediate embarrassment if I call it out."
One which believes that the fielding captain standing at mid-wicket should be given the right to challenge the decision of an umpire who has seen it from the best possible position in the field.
One which shows a nice manufactured graphic on the screen showing the ball hitting the stumps, and the commentators and the viewers - the more people are ignorant about projectile tracking technology, the more is their child-like belief in its infallibility - say: "it MUST BE INCONTROVERTIBLY TRUE that the umpire made a horrible decision there."
The problem is not fundamentally with using technology to assist decision making; it is with the obscene way it is proposed to be implemented.
