Ahmedabad: The use of the much-debated Decision Review System in the World Cup has improved the incidence of correct decisions by five per cent, International Cricket Council chief executive Haroon Lorgat said today.
"To date, we have more than a five per cent improvement in correct decisions and I think we all want fundamentally for umpires to make the correct decisions. We don't want the game to hinge on something that is incorrect," Lorgat told reporters at a press conference here.
"After the tournament, we will review the success of the use of technology. In May, the ICC Cricket Committee will meet and a full report will be prepared by that committee. It will be brought back to the CE's committee and to the Board, probably in June," he said.
Lorgat backed the decision of the World Cup organisers to hold the summit clash of cricket's showpiece event at Mumbai's Wankhede Stadium which has a smaller capacity than some other grounds in India.
"You have got choices to make. Can you imagine a fairytale ending with Sachin Tendulkar getting a hundred in the final and India wins at Wankhede, which is his home ground? And the fact of the matter is no matter what the number, we haven't got sufficient tickets," he explained.
He also defended the way tickets have been sold to the fans who were lathi-charged by the police at some venues while standing in queues for buying them at counters though he conceded there could have been better ways of doing it.
"There's always a better way of doing certain things and there's a few lessons that we can learn from it. But the fact is that the demand has been absolutely phenomenal and no matter how well we tried, we could not fit the demand into the supply. We review the processes that we have got in place after every event," he said.
When it was brought to his notice that tickets bought at counters have been sold at a high premium outside by touts, Lorgat said ICC does not tolerate black marketing but it was difficult to tackle.
"We certainly don't tolerate black marketing of tickets and we have found those instances, we have certainly taken issue and action. I understand in certain instances, there have been arrests. We certainly do not want to see that and we will not tolerate. It's a very difficult issue, you have to catch and apprehend people. We do alert police and other officials to ensure that that does not happen," he said.
The schedule of the tournament has been such teams have had to sit idle for between six and eight days between some games and then play in quick succession at other times, but Lorgat said the participating teams had welcomed it.
"The current schedule was the only way we could do it with 14 teams participating and us wanting every match to be a flagship match. So we were not keen to duplicate matches on the same day. That is in itself is a mathematical formula that will stretch the tournament in the fashion that it does.
"I have got feedback from a number of teams that they are satisfied with the schedule in the sense that it allows them to recover, that it allows them to get over niggles. In fact, MS Dhoni in particular is quite pleased with the schedule," Lorgat said.
He brushed aside the concerns reportedly expressed by Pakistan regarding playing in Mumbai if they make it to the final in the wake of past threats issued by the Shiv Sena about disrupting the match.
"Why would there be any concerns? We would be pleased for whichever two teams get to the final. We have got a very very robust and mature security process down in place. I am confident that whatever measures are required will be in place," he said.
Asked if the ICC will felicitate Sachin Tendulkar when he hits 100 international centuries, Lorgat said, "At this stage, we have no specific plans. It is an enormous milestone and I think Sachin would agree with me that we don't want to prepare for milestones. He does not believe in milestones, but once he achieves that, we will consider what to do."
Looking ahead to the next tournament in 2015, to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand, Lorgat said though it has been decided to hold it as a 10-team event, it has not yet been finalised which teams would contest it.
"There is still a significant topic to consider in terms of qualification for what we have said will be a ten-team World Cup, and in that debate, we will consider all possibilities. I think the second-tier teams, in particular Ireland, have featured very well. They have done themselves proud.
"We want more teams, we want higher levels of competition. One of the reasons was to balance the quality of the tournament versus the number of teams and that was reasoning for the previous decision. But that debate is not complete because we still have to decide which ten teams will participate," he said.
Lorgat also informed that no player has tested positive in the dope tests conducted during the tournament.
"I don't know the number of Tests but I know that at every match, there are anti-doping officials taking samples and there has not been any positive test to date," he said.
