The DRS conundrum: Is the BCCI right about the DRS after all?

The Hotspot technology has several inbuilt inconsistencies

Hot Spot

Everyone remembers the controversy that Usman Khawaja’s dismissal had created during the Ashes in 2013. To refresh the memory, Usman Khawaja was ruled out caught behind during the third Ashes Test in Manchester, and very confident that he had not edged the delivery, Khawaja immediately reviewed the decision.

The replays seemed to confirm that Khawaja was right in reviewing the decision. The Hot Spot showed no mark on the bat to indicate that there had been any edge, and there was clear evidence of the bat clipping the pads to account for whatever noise the umpire may have heard.

Everyone waited patiently for the decision to be overruled on review, but much to everyone’s astonishment, the third umpire opted, for reasons best known to him, to stay with the original decision.

This infuriated the Australian camp to an extent that the then Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd also got involved in the controversy and called it the worst cricket umpiring decision he had ever seen.

The newspaper clippings from the period aptly demonstrated just how much outrage the incident had caused. One would think that lessons would have been learnt from this, but clearly, that was not the case, as just a few months later another high profile caught behind DRS error happened.

This time, it involved Joe Root and was very similar to the Usman Khawaja incident. Here is a video of the incident.

This Joe Root dismissal is eerily similar to the Usman Khawaja dismissal. Umpire rules the batsman out, batsman reviews, nothing shows up on Hot Spot, but the batsman is ruled out anyway.

Why were no lessons learned from the Usman Khawaja incident to ensure that the second error didn't happen? The ICC’s present stand on no-balls is a continuation of this lackadaisical stance it has always had on DRS.

ICC has never been pro-active on DRS and in correcting issues that crop up from time to time. ICC only reacts and even then, it doesn’t react fast enough or as much as it needs to.

It’s not as if these incidents have stopped. There have been many notable DRS errors with regard to catches, even as recently as a few months ago. There was a very notable error involving Nathan Lyon in the first Day-Night Test, where despite Hot Spot showing a clear mark on the bat while reviewing, the 3rd umpire still ruled the catch review as not out, baffling everyone.

Despire a clear Spot on the Bat, Lyon was ruled Not Out even after Review

ICC later admitted to the error and said that Lyon should have been ruled out. Ian Chappel tweeted he couldn’t believe what he just saw. The incident was deemed even more farcial by the fact that Nathan Lyon had started to walk off and stopped only after the on-field umpire ruled it as not out.

Brendon McCullum reviewed the decision and the 3rd umpire still ruled it not out despite that fact that there was a clear mark on the bat indicating Lyon had top-edged his sweep. Shane Warne Tweeted – “Obvious mark on hot-spot, Lyon clearly hit the ball on to his shoulder & he walked off the ground. Ridiculous waste of time & wrong decision.”

One would think Nathan Lyon’s decision is about as farcical as DRS could get, but later, in the recently finished Sri Lankan tour to New Zealand, things got even more farcical. This time, the incident involved Sri Lankan batsman Udara Jayasundara.

At least, in the earlier instances documented above the on-field umpire got it wrong, and then the review was botched up too. With the Jayasundera dismissal, the on-field umpire actually got it right, and then using the DRS, the initial correct decision was over-ruled and a wrong decision arrived at.

Is this development in the right direction? The ICC, far from learning from the errors, intends to sweep the errors as one-offs. Eventually, these errors have piled up to be just too many.