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MANCHESTER. — Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has described the decision to give Usman Khawaja out on review as ‘‘one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions he has ever seen’’. Rudd was outraged to see Khawaja given out he took to Twitter to say: ‘‘I’ve just sat down to watch the test. That was one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions I have ever seen. KRudd.’’

The umpire Decision Review System has come in for close scrutiny during the Investec Ashes series and the Aussies were incensed once again.
The tourists had made a solid start at Old Trafford on the first morning of the third Test at Old Trafford yesterday but there was high drama just before the lunch break after Graeme Swann looked to have trapped Khawaja, caught behind by Matt Prior.

The No 3 batsman asked for the decision to be reviewed and the HotSpot technology suggested he had indeed not touched the ball.
But, remarkably, the TV umpire Kumar Dharmasena told the on-field umpire Tony hill to uphold the initial decision which saw Khawaja heasding back to the dressing room, shaking his head. The evidence from Snicko — which is not part of the DRS system — also indicated there had been no touch on the ball before Prior pouched it.

‘‘There was daylight between bat and ball, there was no HotSpot and no noise,’’ Warne said.
‘‘The only noise was when the bat hit his pad. That’s a shocker, that’s an absolute shocking decsion. ‘You can see the bat hitting the pad, the ball goes past, no noise. There was clear evidence there as well. That is a ridiculous decision.’’

The news comes after the inventor of HotSpot admitted the system’s heat-sensored cameras can fail to show up edges from fast bowlers in the aftermath of Ashton Agar’s controversial dismissal at Lord’s.

‘‘Even with our latest generation HotSpot cameras there are still occasions when HotSpot will miss fine edges,’’ inventor Warren Brennan admitted.
‘‘At Lord’s there were half a dozen very fine edges and I believe that HotSpot only missed the Agar one.’

Brennan is certain of the system’s accuracy to spin bowling but is working on an improved Snickometer — an audio system currently not part of DRS — to work in conjunction with HotSpot to aid decisions off fast bowlers.

‘‘What we are finding with HotSpot is that it is much better on spin bowling,’’ Brennan added. — Mailonline.