India ‘vindicated’ on DRS disdain after Test howlers
View(s):Derided for its stubborn opposition to cricket’s Decision Review System, the game’s superpower India, now feels vindicated over its stance after watching a series of controversies mar the first two Tests of the Ashes series in England.
‘Hot Spot’ plays a major role in DRS reviews
India’s influence over the Asian cricket nations has been the stumbling block for the mandatory adoption of DRS technology across the international game, and it believes its inherent distrust of the way ball-tracking and Hot Spot are deployed has been proved right.
A succession of howlers blotted Tests at Trent Bridge and Lord’s, both won by England, while Australia’s use of the review concept has come under attack.
Ravi Shastri, the former India captain who sits on the technical committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and is the media representative on the ICC Cricket Committee, argues the widespread criticism of his country’s blunt and uncompromising position has been proved ”absolutely” unfair.
”We don’t need to say anything now,” Shastri told Fairfax Media. ”I’ve told a lot of people now in India when I’ve been asked, it’s time to shut up, watch, listen and read … because what [we] have said has been vindicated. I said two or three years ago, ”Wait until the shit hits the roof in a massive series, then you watch what will happen.’
”They don’t have to open their mouths at all now. People can make their own judgment now, they’ve watched it.”
From perplexing decisions and questions over accuracy to the admission of operator error and poor use by players, the umpiring and the review technology has been, short of Australia’s freefall, a major talking point of the Ashes to date.
After the first Test at Trent Bridge, the ICC was even prompted to release umpiring statistics, admitting errors, with chief executive Dave Richardson conceding that ”India have got good reasons [for opposing the DRS]”. It was fitting then that an umpire, Australian Simon Taufel, delivered the MCC Spirit of Cricket Cowdrey lecture at Lord’s on Wednesday night. Taufel, however, said the DRS was here to stay.
”The technology genie has been let out of the bottle and it’s not going to go back in,” he said. ”I would simply advocate that we look at ways to be as pragmatic as possible so we can get more correct decisions and deliver more justice.” – Courtesy The Age
Follow @timesonlinelk
comments powered by Disqus