Dodgy DRS doings arrive right on time for World Cup

Sri Lanka were fleeced by modernity in Dunedin on Sunday when shonky circuitry caused the Decision Review System to crap out when needed most, thus returning the topic to conversation with perfect timing right before the game’s grandstand event.

In the fourth over of the sixth Generic Trophy ODI, the hustling Dhammika Prasad trapped Martin Guptill flush in front with an LBW shout acknowledged all over the universe as glacially DOA.

However, despite having the best seat in the house, umpire Derek Walker was seemingly elsewhere in said universe at the time of questioning, possibly peering deep in to the Milky Way for comets and front-foot no-balls when he should’ve been looking up.

This daydreaming left him without evidence to arbitrate the elementary claim, so he played it safe with a negatory based on the doubt surrounding exactly which stump the bullseye-tracker was going to snap clean in half.

Sensing the knockback was a monstrosity typical of the role that the review system was born to play, an audit was immediately demanded by a frantic Prasad – a man who’d already given a snap-birth to kittens upon disapproval before dancing down the pitch like a TV evangelist.

Like Prasad, we home viewers acknowledged too that it was a scrapbook clanger, yet relaxed when remembering that we live in heady times flush with innovative smart people unaffiliated with the BCCI. Yes, the DRS would fix his mess.

However, it was not to be – unfathomably, the system was on the blink at Prasad’s end of the ground, even despite reinstalling the app and calling IT.

The bad news was confirmed mid-chaos with Walker’s whisper that ‘DRS is down’, an approval of shambles delivered in the kind of low tone usually saved for a suspect who’s hiding under their bed from the Feds.

In a further bizarre turn of events, abstruse skipper Lahiru Thirimanne was apparently already hip to the Reject Shop electronics on hand, and he confirmed the bombshell to the flustered quick in the middle of the team going mental.

Like a man suspecting of his own Candid Camera punking, an already-crazed Prasad assumed the fluid was being taken and naturally cracked it. He was partnered in this cracking by the legendary Mahela Jayawardene, who was heard on the stump mics remarking accurately that the whole thing was “crap”.

After the dust settled, the cold transparency of the replay confirmed the moment for what it was: an unaccountable balls-up the kind for which 25th year public servants are renowned.

And to make it worse, once the thing was rebooted and operational, an opportunity for equal footing was dismissed. Instead of writing it off for the game, New Zealand were given full rights to the tool when they were in the field.

It was crook, and nobody would’ve begrudged Sri Lanka for goin’ right orrrrfff. Luckily the ripples went nowhere and they ended up getting pumped.

Overall, knickers are not to be knotted. This is more a storm in a teacup than a precursor to six weeks of big stage brainfarts. However, it was an ill-timed oddball that could’ve been done without, especially considering the guys paying for the whole shebang hate the thing.

On the eve of international cricket’s prom night, a time where everything’s usually so steady and polished, this was a televisual tits-up reminiscent of an NRL video referee, an AFL goal review, or even worse, the fake baby in American Sniper.

Best be keeping these bloopers for the cutting room floor when the production goes live.