Calcutta, May 8: The Indian cricket audience is annoyed with him for his controversial decisions on Sachin Tendulkar. Now, world-record holding umpire Steve Bucknor has irked television production companies with his remark that images are doctored by them to show the umpire in poor light.

Is Bucknor talking out of his hat or is there any truth in what he’s saying?

The West Indian has two complaints ? key frame/frames that enable the third umpire to make a decision are not shown to him to favour popular batsmen, and some images are doctored to show something other than what actually happened.

“Such a wild thought wouldn’t even occur to any production company,” said Harish Thawani, the chairman of Nimbus Communications that produced the recent India-England series.

“It is possible to not show a frame to the third umpire. But no one would even dream of doing it, particularly since a recording of the entire play is given to the ICC after every match,” said Steve Norris, the production head of TEN Sports.

As for tampering with the images, experts say it’s almost impossible, given that they are beamed ? to both the third umpire and viewers ? almost instantly.

“Everything happens so quickly that you barely get the time to choose which shot to show. Taking out a frame, making changes and re-rendering it would require upto an hour of special effects generation,” said the production head of another sports channel.

Patented technologies like Hawkeye that have to be hired by production companies on a series-by-series basis also provide hack-proof security.

Typically, around 25 cameras are deployed to catch the action during one-day internationals featuring India. Images captured by these cameras reach the production team where the director selects the shot to be shown. These then reach the third umpire and the viewer.

“No one is saying that technology is 100 per cent foolproof. But it acts as a guide to the umpire and helps take some pressure off him,” added Norris.