M S Dhoni
India remains the only Test-playing nation to be holding out on the issue of the Decision Review System, yet has never made clear why exactly it is in such disagreement with the system.
India has maintained a strong stance against the DRS since it was used in a Test against Sri Lanka in 2008, where Sri Lanka were able to make extensive use of referrals while India only managed one single successful review.
Since then the BCCI has said that it will not endorse the DRS while there is still the possibility of error within the technology.
Cricket observers thought this might be close to an end, when India agreed to the use of the DRS, with the BCCI affirming that it “always express its willingness to embrace technology”, according to board President of the BCCI.
A number of errors in the use of Hot Spot once again led India to shun the system, and in the lead up to the Test series against Australia, Indian captain MS Dhoni spoke of the technology, saying that “[India] feels the technology is not 100 percent accurate.”
But while there were poor decisions either way during the Boxing Day test, India were hurt in Australia’s second innings, where Ricky Ponting was given a life and Michael Hussey several lives, when on a second look either should have been out.
With the UDRS in place, the match may have concluded differently.
The referral system might end in a few incorrect decisions, but according to ICC statistics the DRS leads to a correct decision rate of 97 percent, noticeably higher than the rate of 92 percent without it.
Dhoni showed no interest in the statistics, but when will India realise the worth in the use of technology in umpiring, the worth which every other cricketing nation has seen long ago?
I am all for the use of the UDRS in international cricket. What I am against however is the on-field umpires referring no-balls after a clear wicket has been taken. We saw it in the deciding test between Australia and New Zealand, where the umpire at the bowlers end reviewed a spate of front foot no-balls after crucial wickets fell. I understand that we all want the correct decision to be made every time, but surely the decision to review should be one that the batsman or fielding captain makes?
Back to the matter at hand. Must ten incorrect decisions in the space of one batting innings damn India to a laughable total before they stop and think that the ability to review these decisions might have been a godsend?
Or will world cricket continue to be held with a knife to its throat by the biggest financial powerbroker in the game?
