MUMBAI: The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided to introduce the highly debated Decision Review System (DRS) from quarter-final stage of World Cup, scheduled to be held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh from February to April next year.
“The DRS will be used in four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and the final, a total of seven matches, in ICC Cricket World Cup,” an ICC spokesperson told reporters here on Wednesday.
He said DRS would be used only in later stages of the tournament, to be jointly hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, because of paucity of enough number of proper equipment for it to be used during the league phase too.
The quarter-finals are scheduled for March 23 (Dhaka), March 24 (Colombo), March 25 (Dhaka) and March 26 (Ahmedabad). The semi-finals are scheduled be held on March 29 (Colombo) and March 30 (Mohali), while Mumbai will host the final on April 2.
Meanwhile, ICC’s venue inspection squad comprising seven groups visited Wankhede Stadium here, which is to host the grand finale.
“Seven groups are dealing with cricket operations, commerce, grounds, legal, security, broadcast, media. They had inspection of the stadium and whatever they saw today will be shared with Tournament Director [Prof Ratnakar Shetty],” he said.
Renovation work in the stadium that commenced more than two years ago is still to be completed but officials of Mumbai Cricket Association, which owns it, are confident everything will be completed, barring some finishing touches, by end of this year.
Everything would be ready by Dec 31 and by Jan 15, 2011 final finishing touches would also be completed, said an MCA source.
As per the ICC requirements, organisers are yet to play a few matches on newly laid pitch and renovated outfield to test their readiness for hosting World Cup matches.
The ICC team visit to Wankhede Stadium follows its tour of Sri Lanka between Nov 30 and Dec 5 and its inspection of Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai, another venue to host World Cup ties, two days ago.
It has already visited five other venues in India which are hosting World Cup matches — Nagpur, Mohali, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Delhi — last month and visit Kolkata’s Eden Gardens on Thursday before moving to Dhaka and Chittagong in Bangladesh from Dec 10 to 14.—Agencies
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