If you’ve been a sentient being in Australia over the last few weeks, you’ve likely heard a fair bit about the Decision Review System (DRS) that is used in test cricket.
Its use, or lack thereof in this current series against India, is more than a little controversial.
Like all polarising arguments, there have been many arguments for and against the TV/computer assisted review system all with varying levels of fact-based accuracy and logic.
Naturally, there are some utterly bizarre ones in there as well, but we won’t dwell on those.
But there was a moment, as I sat during the lunch break on day two of the Melbourne test, when something strange happened: I agreed with a Channel Nine commentator.
Ian Chappell, former Australian captain, put forward the argument that the current DRS system (in which each side is allowed two incorrect challenges against an umpires decision per innings) is against the spirit of the game and should be replaced with a review system that is controlled entirely by the four umpires (and yes, any international match as four umpires, not three).
His core point was that the DRS was no longer being used as a check and balance against horridly inaccurate umpiring decisions, but instead as a tactic by teams to try and gain a slight advantage by getting 50/50 calls overturned to their advantage.
To me, that makes perfect sense and the two tests against New Zealand highlighted that perfectly.
But it was during Chappell’s arguments that I had an epiphany.
Giving the players out on the field the opportunity to challenge the umpires call goes against a core principle of sportsmanship that we attempt to enshrine in every individual that takes to a sporting field; that you respect the decisions of the officials.
I remember in my (hardly glorious) sporting days as a youngster, you are always told to respect the umpires’ decisions and play to the whistle. It was one of the aspects of participating in sport that was always held in the highest regard.
So going against that and giving players the chance to essentially tell the umpire they think they’re wrong flies directly in the face of that. So how does this fit into the DRS debate?
Well, it’s quite simple. We change the way that decisions are referred to the third umpire. We should take away the challenges of the players and instead allow the umpires in the middle to refer any decision they themselves are not 100 per cent confident they can adjudicate on correctly.
This way, we remove the using of DRS for a team’s advantage and return running of the decision making of a match to where it belongs – with the match officials.
For as long as I can remember (in my short 26 years on this planet), it has always been the umpires that have referred close run-out decisions to the video replay and in recent times they have been able to do the same for no ball decisions.
It only makes sense than any ability to call upon technology to help improve the accuracy of decisions made out on the field is left in the hands of those responsible for making those decisions and not in the hands of those who will seek to use it for their own benefit.
That, for me, is the only way such a system should ever be implemented in test cricket in order to keep the spirit of respecting the umpires call but also allowing for their decisions to be reviewed and, if needed, corrected.
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