Reports | No-ball trials with third umpire to commence from India vs West Indies series

Earlier this year, a major controversy had taken place in the 12th edition of the IPL when on-field umpire S Ravi failed to call the no-ball off Lasith Malinga’s over. The Mumbai Indians pacer had over-stepped in the Super Over that decided the fate of the game against Royal Challengers Bangalore. RCB captain Virat Kohli had erupted after his team lost and brought this matter into attention. While the IPL Governing Council took the decision to do away with on-field umpires calling the no-ball for overstepping starting from IPL 2020, the ICC had shown no signs of doing the same until now.

Many umpires, of late, have gone off the record to reveal that registering no-balls and then adjudicating an LBW in no time has been a hassle for them. In the first Test at Brisbane, in which Australia beat Pakistan by an innings and 5 runs, the field umpires missed calling 21 front foot no-balls, by Pakistan's bowlers, in one innings. As an immediate side effect of that, the ICC could be assigning the third umpire with a greater role in no-ball calling.

While the ICC has made no official statement on this, a spokesman of the board has revealed that this could be their next step, starting from the T20I series between India and West Indies, starting from next month.

“Over the next few months, the ICC is going to conduct some trials where the third umpire is going to call no-balls. The first series will be the India-WI T20 and ODI series starting Dec 6,” an ICC spokesman told Hindustan Times.

During the aforementioned trial period, ICC will be looking at the efficiency of the TV umpire in calling no-balls.