India’s growing love affair with DRS has a new chapter
BCCI’s decision to include the Decision Review System (DRS) in IPL after almost a decade since its introduction could be a historic call on India’s part. Given India’s dismal record in Tests under Virat Kohli’s captaincy, this could be a huge step in preparing them for life after MS Dhoni.
On Wednesday, BCCI finally announced the usage of DRS in the Indian Premier League after years of stern stance on the referral system. The board had reportedly chosen 10 umpires to provide them training in Vizag before going with the decision, and in the process became the second major T20 league to adopt it after the Pakistan Super League (PSL).
From opposing the DRS ahead of the 2011 World Cup to finally accepting its implementation in IPL 2018, BCCI has come a long way. After India had experienced a horrible outing in Sri Lanka back in 2008 under DRS, where their losing series saw the hosts making 11 successful reviews to India’s none, the BCCI was adamant in their rejection of the system.
"The cricket committee is just a sub-committee and it can only make recommendations, it is for the executive board to ratify them or not. We will oppose it at the Executive Board because the UDRS in its present form is unacceptable to us," the then board's secretary N Srinivasan had said.
It was followed by yet another unfortunate experience in their 2011 World Cup winning campaign when England’s Ian Bell saw the ball clearly hitting the middle and off stump and given was not out. Under some strange rule, if the batsman is 2.5 metres away from the stumps, he couldn’t be given LBW, it was pointed out. Indians were furious at the decision, which was contrary to the 2009 Champions Trophy game when MS Dhoni was given lbw by Simon Taufell, despite him being at least 4 metres away from the stumps.
Though it had further multiplied India’s hatred for DRS system, Virat Kohli’s strong advocacy towards the referral system meant BCCI finally took giant strides towards accepting it in 2016 in the England series. However, the progressive mindset only bared India’s dismal success rate in using the system. Numbers in 2017 showed that in seven Test matches that India played since the start of DRS usage, comprising of both batting and fielding statistic, they could get only 17 correct decisions out of the 55 referrals taking the success percentage to a mere 30.9 percent.
The first Test in Pune against Australia in Border Gavaskar Trophy had clearly reflected India’s failure in DRS when MS Dhoni was not around. India had wasted all 4 of their reviews while fielding and got only one correct out of three while batting. Dhoni’s successor, Wriddhiman Saha, although a brilliant wicket-keeper, has been terrible in DRS calls and Kohli’s Test record until March 2017 was showing it. As a fielding captain, Kohli had taken 41 reviews, being unsuccessful in 32 of them. It was only their holistic displays that had still kept them in the number 1 position.
While India
“It's priceless. I saw a stat yesterday that 95% of the appeals that he's made in his career have been successful. As a
Hence, with 2019 World Cup edging ever closer and Dhoni’s sharpness declining with every passing series, it was time BCCI took a clever call on finding his successor. And an intensely competitive completion like IPL, which has successfully brought the best out of numerous domestic talents of the country, could surely take a huge help from the DRS introduction.