Tendulkar’s favoured Hot Spot technology owners go cold on WC after CWG fiasco

MELBOURNE - The patent holder for Hot Spot technology, Warren Brennan of BBG Sports, is not very enthusiastic over bringing the innovation to India due to logistical precedents and the ongoing lack of will by the Indian administrators.

The chances of the World Cup being decided by an umpiring errors have increased after the International Cricket Council failed to secure the nod for the umpire decision-review system (UDRS) for the World Cup.

The ICC announced in October 2010 that Hot Spot, Sachin Tendulkar’s favoured cricket technology innovation, would be used in the semi-finals and final of the World Cup, The Age reports.

Tendulkar had also declared that he preferred Hot Spot to ball-tracking systems. “I am not fully convinced with the referral system. I would rather go with the Hot Spot because that establishes the contact between the bat and the ball. That it is far better system according to me. The Hot Spot is much better,” he had said after scoring a double century.

But Warren Brennan of BBG Sports in Melbourne said recent revelations about Australian companies being owed millions of dollars and having their equipment held up in India after the Commonwealth Games was “the straw the broke the camel’s back.”

“The risks involved are just too big for us. There are a range of companies who haven’t been paid for services they provided to the Commonwealth Games, but also had their equipment impounded. The Indians have come up with every excuse in the book for why it happened. And it’s still going on. It’s a nightmare for us,” Brennan said.

“That Commonwealth Games stuff absolutely scared the pants off me. Our stuff is classified as high-grade military equipment, and we can’t take the chance of our equipment getting impounded in India,” he said.

The decision by BBG to withhold Hot Spot from the World Cup comes as Virtual Eye, the New Zealand company that provided the tracking graphics used in the Ashes, confirmed that it did not bid to provide its software to the tournament.

The only technology provider to be used in decision reviews at the World Cup will be English company Hawk-Eye Innovations.

Brennan had a bad experience last time when the company provided cameras for the 2009 Champions League Twenty20 tournament that ran into problems and he had to wait weeks to get equipment returned. (ANI)