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DRS has been in operation now for just over five years and I think most cricket fans would agree it has proved to be of intrinsic value.
Indeed, I feel it has far exceeded expectations of its worth, in that in addition to eliminating the howler, it has injected drama through the indecision and deliberations leading to a referral.
Shane Watson’s referrals in the 2013 Ashes spring to mind as intriguing new textures we now have thanks to DRS.
When Watson called to have those palpably plumb lbws reviewed, it was wonderful drama. Weighing upon him was his duty to the team to not waste a review, for if he got it wrong he knew it could cost his teammates. Moreover, weighing upon him was ridicule in the media for using DRS in a selfish act of desperation.
In then brazenly calling for reviews in those instances, and finding that Hawkeye went on to rule that the balls were taking his middle stump (and a foot under the bails), we learnt a lot about Watson.
For one, we defiantly know Watson has no idea where his stumps are: a fatal flaw for an international cricketer, I venture. And if he were to argue to the contrary, then we learnt that he is either deluded, in that he got it so wrong, or selfish, in that he gambles at his teammates’ expense.
We owe DRS for these insights into Watson. DRS lures the flawed player from his lair and exposes him for what he is. In Watson’s case, it exposed ineptitude, and if not that, a predisposition for gambling and narcissism. Further, it revealed a foolhardiness, in that he must have known he’d be braving the media’s blowtorch if these reviews proved reckless.
The wonder is that he survived the scorching.
But having made a case that DRS has distinguished itself thus far, I feel that he needs a recalibration all the same.
Two reviews per 80 overs is not quite right, for me. It creates too many situations where players feel licensed to roll the dice as the banked reviews approach expiration. Think of how many times fielding captains have reviewed appeals that are palpably not out late in a DRS stanza? Their mindset is understandably ‘What have I got to lose?’, but, of course, this prevails at the expense of a match’s progress.
I think a better approach would be to reduce the number of referrals. Indeed, I’d like to see it as two per match; and that’s batting and bowling over all four innings.
Now before you say that’s paltry, consider that in essence it’s a limitless amount so long as players keep getting it right.
When DRS was first conceptualised, I envisaged that it would only be called upon for howlers. I pictured mortified batsmen signaling for it beseechingly when given lbw to balls pitching a foot outside leg and horrified bowlers demanding it litigiously when spurned by half-deaf umpires who hadn’t detected chunky edges.
I recalled Sunil Gavaskar dragging Chetan Chauhan from the ‘G in 1981 and Michael Kasprowicz with his hand off the handle as the ball grazed his glove at Edgbaston. I saw incorrect decisions rectified and controversy extinguished.
But the howler hasn’t recurred at a rate that warranted two reviews per 80 overs for my money, and this has created a new time wasting scourge. Too often, reviews are borne from desperation and not exasperation, and the fruitless results from as much slow down the game.
It takes a great deal of time to build Snicko, Hawkeye and Hotspot for a review and we shouldn’t care to do so to humour something laughable… unless, of course, it’s a contested lbw by Watto.
Note: Further on DRS, and on a lighter note, I run a blog for a character named Viv Tufnell. He is a fictional Sheffield Shield cricketer crippled by mean-spiritedness and delusion. Here’s his twisted take on referrals.
Viv on DRS
“You know what? Test batsmen don’t know how good they’ve got it. I mean to be able to play under DRS would be a paradise, especially when you’re as hard done by as me.
I tell ya, umpires have got it in for me. They always have. That’s why it would be so sweet to challenge their ineptitude and corruption. It would have made such a difference to my career. In fact, it’s fair to say it’s cost me international selection. That and an Alan Border medal.
I, honest to god, my hand on my heart, swear on my parents’ untended graves, have never been lbw. Call it intuitiveness, or a feel for the angles and trajectories or whatever, but I’ve never been adjacent. I know it in my bones. That’s why it’s been so hard coming to terms with the 40 dodgy lbw decisions metered out to me (and how they continue to gnaw away).
Further, there have been 20 clear cut times that I have been ruled caught by a keeper when it clearly missed the bat. And yes, I know you’re going to say, ‘isn’t that every time you’ve been caught by a keeper?’. But it’s true. I honest to god, hand on my heart, swear on my parents’ untended graves, have never been out this way. Really!
And as for runouts and stumpings, well no one has suffered more howlers than I have… no one!
So how sweet it would have been to have challenged this ineptitude. How vindicating it would have been to have righted these wrongs. Truly, only the severely wronged like Nelson Mandela have empathy with me on this one.
Hmm, DRS? Test batsmen don’t know how good they’ve got it.”
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