India Insight

Australian umpire Daryl Harper might have done what months of persuasion could not — to make the Indian cricket board see logic in the Decision Review System (DRS).

The elite cricket committee of the International Cricket Council (ICC), which includes the team’s former World Cup winning coach Gary Kirsten and former captain Ravi Shastri, recommended mandatory use of the technology in all three formats, a suggestion that seems to have the backing of most boards.

Even Sachin Tendulkar, though still apprehensive of the ball-tracking technology, came out with the clarification that he was not altogether against DRS.

But nothing would convince the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), seen by some as luddite to oppose the technology that ICC claims has improved correct decisions by seven percent.

Harper’s three dubious decisions in Sabina Park may finally convince the world’s richest and most powerful cricket board to embrace technology.

India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, another familiar DRS sceptic, sounded clearly peeved with the dubious umpiring in the Sabina Park test which his team won by 63 runs.

“If correct decisions were made, the game would have ended much earlier and we would have been in the hotel by now,” Dhoni rued at the post-match press conference.

Dhoni and the BCCI may finally revisit their decision and welcome DRS which would be debated at this week’s ICC annual conference in Hong Kong.