Picture Credit: Twitter/@ICC
The upcoming T20 World Cup is set to become the first Men's T20I World Cup that will see the use of the Decision Review System. The same was confirmed by the International Cricket Council recently. It has been conveyed that each side will be allotted 2 reviews per innings.
An extra review has been added due to the fact that umpires officiating in the world event can be a bit inexperienced due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the various limitations due to it.
Yet another major change introduced by the ICC for the event is the change in the number of overs that are to be bowled in case a match is impacted by weather conditions. The new rules say that each team should have batted at least 5 overs, for the Duckworth Lewis method to come into the picture, but for the knockout matches - the semifinals and the final - minimum number of overs has been capped at 10.
Women's T20 World Cup has already seen use of DRS
While the Decision Review System has been used in a T20 World Cup before, it was used in the Women's T20 World Cup in 2018. However, at that time the teams could avail only one review per innings which is usually the norm in T20 cricket - similar to franchise leagues like the Indian Premier League.
In the men's cricket, the use of DRS in a major ICC event started in 2017 with the Champions Trophy being the first marquee event. However, after that the 2019 50-over World Cup, as well as the inaugural World Test Championship final also had DRS.
T20 World Cup 2021 was slated to happen in 2020
The forthcoming ICC Men's T20 World Cup was originally slated to happen in India in 2020 but the outset of Coronavirus pandemic first postponed the competition to 2021 and forced the organisers to move the tournament out of India.
The last T20 World Cup which was hosted in India was in 2016 and the home team had succumbed to a defeat to the eventual champions West Indies in the semifinal at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai. The Men in Maroon, in fact, are the only team to have more than two T20 titles to their credit and are being looked as strong contenders yet again by several experts and commentators.