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The ICC has confirmed that the inventor of Hot Spot, Warren Brennan,
raised concerns with them this week over the effect of bat coatings on
the technology, which detects edges using thermal imaging, but that he
was warned against suggesting players were deliberately trying to cheat
the system.
Although Brennan has not explicitly stated any such worries in public
and has declined to comment, he sent a tweet on Monday to former England
captain Michael Vaughan that said: "Michael, it's time you investigate
why players are using fibreglass tape on the edges of their bats."
Channel Nine also reported on Thursday that Brennan had raised his
"serious concerns" with the ICC about flaws in the system. The Channel
Nine report stated that Brennan feared silicone tape on bats could fool
the technology by dulling the Hot Spot and ensuring no mark shows up on
the edge even if a batsman has nicked the ball.
Nine reported that testing was carried out, which showed that a second
layer of tape had the dulling effect. Geoff Allardice, the ICC's general
manager of cricket operations, met with team management of both England
and Australia in Durham on Thursday, and the ICC has announced Hot Spot
will continue to be used for the rest of this series.
Allardice confirmed that he and Brennan had met in Melbourne on Friday
to discuss the series and Brennan afterwards sent an email raising
concerns.
"He followed up with an email to me on Monday suggesting that they'd
looked at some clips and that coatings on the bat might have been
dulling down the Hot Spot mark," Allardice said. "He made us aware of
that. On Tuesday, he did some testing and informed us of that. He also
advised us that he was intending to make a media statement.
"We talked about the timing of that. It's his company, his product, he's
free to say whatever he likes in the media. We were expecting to see
something either yesterday or today.
"We didn't really talk about the inference that players were doing it
deliberately to try and beat the Hot Spot. I think we did warn him that
if he made a statement along those lines, if the inference was that the
players were trying to cheat the Hot Spot system he would need some
strong evidence to support that. There is no evidence to support that
assertion and certainly from the comments of the teams you can see that
they don't believe that that happens."
Both Michael Clarke and Alastair Cook have vehemently denied that any of
their players have deliberately used tape in an effort to fool Hot Spot
and the teams are happy for the technology to continue to be used
throughout this series. When Allardice was asked if the ICC would
consider changing its playing conditions to prevent the use of such tape
on bats, he said "a lot more evidence" would be required before any
such move was made.
"I think it's very early days, in that players have had coatings on
bats, and manufacturers' stickers on bats, and reinforcing tape on bats
for forever and a day," Allardice said. "We listened to Warren's view
and there may be something in it but I'd think we'd want to gain a lot
more evidence before we'd look at rule changes or anything like that.
"This was a theory that he put up on Monday this week. He did some tests
that he felt supported that theory. We would like to see some more
evidence from on the ground with players in action to support that. At
this stage we've got no intention of changing the rules in the short
term."
Brydon Coverdale is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo. He tweets here
Feeds: Brydon Coverdale
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
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