Ehsan Mani (right) and Malcolm Speed unveil the Champions Trophy in Mumbai on Tuesday

Mumbai: Aiming to aid umpires in arriving at more accurate decisions, the International Cricket Council on Tuesday announced that umpires at this year’s Champions Trophy in England would be helped by stump microphones wired to their ears.

The high-profile tournament, featuring all Test playing nations plus two qualifiers in England in September, would also be used to conduct research into all slow bowlers on view in order to solve the problem of “illegal bowling actions”, ICC president Ehsan Mani and chief executive Malcolm Speed told a press conference Tuesday.

The two ICC bigwigs were speaking after officially launching the 2004 ICC Champions Trophy and unveiling the glittering trophy at a suburban hotel.

“We want to give the umpires a better opportunity to arrive at correct decisions through hearing the sounds emanating at the batsman’s end. That’s why they will be wired to the stump microphones. We hope this will help in improving the number of correct decisions (that they give),” he said.

“We are seeking to carry out research on all slow bowlers who would be video-taped and their bowling actions analysed by a three-member committee comprising Aravinda de Silva (Sri Lanka), Tim May (Australia) and Angus Fraser (England),” he said.

The ICC chief executive also said another innovation that the world governing council will implement through the help of TV technology is to ask the third umpire to call out no-balls in next month’s tri-nation event in Holland.

“The three-member committee would use biomechanical experts to study the actions of all the slow bowlers in the tournament.

“It will come out with a report that would be submitted to the ICC’s cricket committee (playing) which would make recommendations to the chief executive,” Speed explained.

But the ICC chief executive made it clear that all these extended usage of technology in no way points out to making the umpires’ roles redundant.

“Our aim is to increase the rate of correct decisions arrived at by our umpires from the present 91-92 per cent to 94-96 per cent in one-day Internationals. We seek to do this with the help of technology only if it provides 100 per cent or close to 100 per cent correct decisions. It should also be financially viable to enforce,” he said.

India are grouped in pool C along with Kenya and arch-rivals Pakistan in the qualifying stage of the meet.

“This year’s Champions Trophy will see matches being continued on the second day (reserve day) from the stage where they are abandoned on the opening day in case of weather interruptions,” Mani said.

The winners of the Champions Trophy will take home a whopping $525,000. The top-side will claim $100,000 for winning both their group matches, another $125,000 for winning the semi-finals and $300,000 for emerging victorious in the final. (PTI)