Hogwired All about sports On what is seen as a significant development Indian coach Anil Kumble and BCCI president took part in a meeting with ICC and Hawk Eye representatives. These representatives made detailed presentations of the upgraded version of Decision Review System (DRS). Reports suggest that there are discussions to implement DRS during the upcoming India – England series which includes five Tests and also during the series against Australia later.
Going by initial feedback, the top brass of BCCI including Anurag Thakur and Anil Kumble accepted that there are “some improvements” in the DRS (upgraded version). This reflected the fact that India’s concerns have been addressed in the upgraded version of Decision Review System (DRS).
Apart from the Indian coach and the BCCI in the hour-long meeting regarding the DRS, there was also, CEO Rahul Johri and GM (Game Development) MV Sridhar. In this meeting, ICC was represented by their General Manager Geoff Allardice along with two representatives from the ‘Hawk Eye’ company. After the meeting Anurag Thakur in a statement to PTI confirmed they had a meeting with ICC and Hawk Eye representatives and added that they saw their presentation. When Thakur was asked to explain in detail he confirmed that they have noticed some improvements in the upgraded version of DRS. Thakur said that now they will discuss the matter “internally” and revert to ICC “at the earliest”.
The presence of Kumble in the above meeting is considered very important because the Indian coach is among the very few people who know about the functional changes made to the DRS to make it better and also to remove BCCI’s fears about this system.
India’s and BCCI’s stand has always been that ‘Ball Tracking Technology'(DRS) is not 100 percent full proof.
The doubts and apprehension regarding this controversial ‘Ball Tracking System’ have stayed with India since the India’s disastrous tour of the Sri Lanka way back in 2008. In this tour, DRS (in its initial form) was employed and the visitors got only one decision in their favour.
The senior Indian players during the tour which included the likes of Kumble, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni had all expressed their reservations about the DRS.
For a long time, the stand of BCCI on the DRS has been quite stubborn. ICC has repeatedly tried to reach out to BCCI when Dhoni was in charge.
After Virat Kohli became the captain of the Indian Test side there seems to have been a slight change in the stand on the Indian side.
Kohli on multiple occasions has advocated the use of this technology.
