‘Virtual Eye’s inaccurate ball-tracking could lead to wrong decisions in Ashes’

SYDNEY - The founder of Hawk-Eye, Paul Hawkins, has said that inaccurate ball-tracking by Virtual Eye could lead to wrong decisions in the ongoing Ashes series.

Hawkins has produced evidence of an error during the second Test at Adelaide Oval.

He claimed that Virtual Eye - a rival ball-tracking system employed by host broadcasters at Channel Nine- had inaccurately processed an lbw appeal against Australian batsman Marcus North.

“In this instance we measured a 4.5-centimetre distance between the actual point of impact and the one reported by Virtual Eye,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Hawkins, as saying.

“Virtual Eye has trouble identifying the impact point between the ball and the batsman’s pad. Will we have to wait until there is a major controversy before any action is taken?” he added.

He, however, said that the discrepancy had not led to an umpiring error.

Virtual Eye has been developed by a New Zealand-based company, and has provided ball-tracking services for series in Australia, New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

In contrast to Hawk-Eye’s more automated system, Virtual Eye uses an operator to look at the screen and select the frame which best represents the point of impact.

Meanwhile, Virtual Eye’s Managing Director Ian Taylor has admitted that there had been a human error in the processing of the North delivery.

However, he insisted that the operator had realised his error, and only allowed the projection to be shown because he knew it would not affect the outcome of the review.We are quite conscious that something we do might decide the Ashes, and we are completely confident that our technology will give the right decision,” Taylor said. (ANI)