WHY INDIA IS AGAINST DRS

BIG QUESTION
HT takes a look at how from being the first to experiment with it, the BCCI turned against the referral system

A look at how BCCI turned against the referral system I t was December of 2005 and India were playing Sri Lanka at Delhi’s Feroz Shah Kotla ground. On the first day, Sachin Tendulkar was confidently working his way towards his 35th hundred while being engaged in a fascinating duel with Muttiah Muralitharan. The Lankan wrist spinner was a constant threat, testing the batsman with all weapons in his armoury. But despite some strong appeals, Tendulkar survived the day.
GETTY IMAGES $60,000 (APPROX R 34 LAKH) DAILY COST OF IMPLEMENTING DRS Mahendra Singh Dhoni asks for a review during India’s game against England in the World Cup in February, 2011. When play resumed the second morning, Tendulkar quickly realised it was a different ball game. Many decisions had gone in his favour the previous day but the first time a similar appeal was made, it was upheld by the umpire.
Tendulkar tried to play Muralitharan as he had done throughout the innings but now umpire Simon Taufel had no second thoughts on raising his finger.
It was a bold call as the bowler had bowled from around the stumps, the ball pitched in line and hit the pad in line with the stumps but looked like drifting down the leg side.
The umpire, it appeared, had changed his opinion. Technology was available for the umpires to study their decisions at the end of the day’s play and it appeared it had an influence in making the judgment the next day.
TECHNOLOGY INFLUENCES
This incident is crucial to understand why the Indian board is so against the Decision Review System in its current form. From where Taufel, the world’s best umpire, looks at the game, Tendulkar was out, but from where Tendulkar, the world’s best batsman, looks at the game, there was no way he could have been given out.
The advent of technology in the game has influenced umpiring in a huge way. No one will openly admit but since their performances have been reviewed based on the camera recordings after the day’s play, most umpires admit that subconsciously they make the decision thinking how it will look on camera.
It means it’s a generation which has changed its style of making decisions. And having been used to playing to a certain set of rules all their careers, it’s something Tendulkar & Co are not convinced about. For them, it is too much of a guessing game, especially in decisions like leg-before where the HawkEye predicts the bounce after pitching. For them, it was always safe when you were full-stretch forward but in DRS the Hawk-Eye technology predicts the trajectory the ball would take after the impact. An Indian batting great compares it to playing a video game.
INITIALLY AGREED

“There have been instances where I give a batsman out based on how it will look on camera when the umpire’s coach will sit with me at the end of the day. I know I would never give that decision if the camera was not behind me. The batsmen have looked stunned and I tell them check it in the camera. And, in the camera it looks out,” admits a first-class umpire.
Interestingly, the Board of Control for Cricket in India was the first to agree to experiment with the referral system during the Sri Lanka series in 2008. But at the end of it, the Indian players were left unconvinced. And when you have voices like Anil Kumble, who was the skipper, Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly and VVS Laxman expressing doubts, it should come as no surprise that the parent body backed them. Since then, the BCCI has been against the system (now termed Decision Review System).
Now, it’s become a case of BCCI versus the rest. At the latest ICC annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur, DRS was recommended to be made mandatory for all Tests and ODIs by the ICC’s Cricket Committee and by its Chief Executives Committee (CEC), but the BCCI remained the lone objector to implementing the system, publicly rejecting the proposal while calling it ‘not good enough’ and inaccurate.
UNHAPPY SKIPPER
Skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni is among those convinced the technology is not working in the current form as can be made out from an incident during the 2010 Test series in Sri Lanka. It was on the penultimate day of third Test at the P Sara Oval when Murali Vijay was controversially ruled caught in the close cordon by the TV umpire without conclusive shots of whether it was a clean take.
Coach Gary Kirsten complained to match referee Andy Pycroft about the manner in which Vijay was adjudged out. On the sidelines, Dhoni was involved in an intense discussion with a senior member of the TV production crew. The topic was the use of technology. And as the duo discussed Hawk-Eye, one could clearly hear Dhoni say he and his teammates were “not convinced” with the ball-tracking technology.
In fact, most of the senior members of the Indian team are convinced the tracker can be “manipulated manually”.
“It depends on how well you calibrate the cameras, if not, the reading will not be accurate,” says a senior cricket analyst, who is a pioneer in introducing technology in Indian cricket.
“If you ask, whether the technology available is hundred per cent reliable, it’s not. In Hawk-Eye, from pitching to the point of impact, there’s no doubt about it, but from there to the stumps, it’s pure prediction. The Hot Spot technology is very good but during the second Test at Nottingham (2011), it didn’t pick an edge off VVS Laxman’s bat when everyone thought it was an edge, and it was blamed on Laxman. Naturally, it didn’t go down well with the Indian team.”
Then, there are the heavy costs involved.
It looks unlikely that the Indian board is going to agree to the use of the DRS anytime soon. However, its views on it might change with the change of guard in the team. Most of the younger players don’t have such strong views against it. It will depend on how the whole game is going to be viewed in the future. The innovations have to come but it shall need a very, very reliable system to convince the Indians.