DRS?

So it’s the end of day four of the 1^st Test between India and England, the game is still very much in the balance with England needing to dig in and take pride and hopefully a draw out of the game.

It could have been a different story, however. Alistair Cook, Nick Compton, Matt Prior and Samit Patel all adjudged not out by the umpire. That’s not a problem though, just take it upstairs?

Oh no, of course not. The BCCI are still not budging when it comes to the review system. Their reasoning is that it is not 100% correct; which is fair but nothing in this world is. A statement from 2011 read:

"The BCCI continues to believe that the system is not foolproof," it said. "It also sticks to its view that the decision on whether or not to use the DRS for a particular series should be left to the boards involved in that series."

There seems to be a lot of talk of late that the reason for neglecting DRS comes from the senior Indian batsmen. The likes of Sachin and Sehwag being given not out LBW on home soil, from the on field umpire, without the possibility of it being overturned sounds like a cunning plan.

In 2008, when the DRS was last used for a Test series involving India, Sri Lanka made 11 successful referrals, while MS Dhoni's team had just one. Sour grapes, perhaps?

Even cricket writer for The Sun, Ali Martin tweeted yesterday after a Dhoni finger wag at the umpire:

"Sorry Dhoni, that is not on. Speak to your board if you don't like it"

All that was needed to make DRS mandatory was for any full member to ask for a vote at an ICC board meeting. The fact that no one did comes down to the BCCI flexing their muscles. Every country want to host India and it is not because of the quality of cricket on offer, but more importantly the amount of money the series brings.

Instead of falling out and burning bridges with the super power of world cricket, the rest have to bite their tongue, use DRS in every other series they play and again let the BCCI dictate terms, whether it be at home or away.

We had some comments on a previous post regarding the similarities between ICC and FIFA. All I can say is FIFA is the association where no country or personality is bigger than the game. Countries have been banned for either trying to involve politics in the game or trying to intervene in its country games or trying to impose own interests in FIFA policies. That is why you do not see any league privately run by the country associations where they implement their own rules and regulations,

The ICC has become completely overrun by one Board.