Understanding Indian cricketers' angst about Decision Review System

By Chetan Narula

If you think you live in a safe neighbourhood, try leaving your home unlocked at night. Because then, if you get robbed, the police will surely blame you more than the robbers. That's probably the situation the Indian team finds itself with regard to the Decision Review System ( DRS) at the moment.

"DRS is not 100% [accurate]," Virat Kohli had said before the first Test. Just because they oppose the system, does it mean that every time an Indian batsman gets out to a wrong decision, it is his fault? While it is true that the BCCI's view of the DRS maybe wrong, it doesn't amount to batsmen meriting wrong umpiring decisions.

That the umpires get them wrong – and with some consistency, as seen in the first two Tests of the ongoing India-Australia series – is the basic point. Take Ajinkya Rahane's dismissal in the second innings at Adelaide.

The ball was nowhere near his bat and he was given caught bat-pad, or Cheteshwar Pujara’s in the first innings at Brisbane, where the ball hit his helmet-grill on its way to the ‘keeper and he was given out, caught behind. Obvious mistakes but they form different sides of an argument for and against the DRS.

In the second scenario, unless referred by the batsman and deduced with the help of aids like HotSpot and Snickometer, it can be impossible to overturn the decision. Though in the first, an overturn by the third umpire might be necessary. This debate on DRS can be partly ended with a simple tweaking of rules by which the third umpire is given the power to overturn decisions that are wrong and simple enough to spot. But even with that point taken care of, the Indian team and the BCCI will not be convinced of its usability.

"There are a lot of 50-50 decisions that are not going in batsmen's favour. We need to use the DRS to give the right decision irrespective of whether the umpire has given it out or not," MS Dhoni said after the second Test. Wherever the Indian team has travelled in the past year – South Africa, New Zealand, England and now Australia – the DRS is used extensively and India's tour is break time. But there is a wind of change blowing through this Australian series, there is a new willingness to acknowledge questions on the DRS. Perhaps it stems from the knowledge that it will be used during the upcoming 2015 World Cup.