“No,” was ICC chief executive Dave Richardson’s considered, one-word response, delivered with a chuckle, when asked about whether there was any indication that India would buy into the DRS in the foreseeable future. That puts to rest any imminent change of mind by the BCCI as being predicted based on the open-ended statements delivered by two senior players: MS Dhoni during the Australia tour last December and Virat Kohli after India’s one-off Test against Bangladeshearlier this month.
Richardson paused, creased his eyebrows as if he was giving a considered thought before responding, but in the end he just realised it was futile. Still he remains optimistic.
“But having said that, times change, players move on. The modern player is more amenable to new ideas and innovation. So who knows, in the next couple of years,” Richardson said, addressing the media in Barbados at the end of the ICC’s annual conference which concluded on Friday.
Richardson has encountered the ‘Are India ready for DRS?’ question virtually at every press briefing. Every time, Richardson has had to put a straight face to give the same answer. Unfortunately for him today, N Srinivasan, the ICC chairman and former former BCCI president, who was scheduled to sit with Richardson to address the media, was absent.
According to Richardson as much as the ICC would like to have a uniform DRS applied consistently across the board, India remain unconvinced. “The ICC has said it would prefer to have a consistent DRS system used wherever international series are played. However there is one Member who does not want to use it. And until we have everyone seeing form the same hymn sheet in that regard it remains upto the host board to pay for the technology that is used in a series.
“So that is why in some series you have got the full works: ball tracking, Hot Spot, snicko, you name it and in others series they have to do with less,” Richardson said responding to a question about whether ICC was satisfied with the DRS and its various components.
Richardson said he continues to remain hopeful of eventually getting to a state where the same technology would be applied in a consistent fashion. “We are not there yet. But to that end we trying to take the approach of making sure everyone has full faith or full belief that the technology that we use is accurate and reliable.”
To take matters forward Richardson said that the pair of ICC general manager Geoff Allardice and Anil Kumble, head of ICC’s cricket committee, would be travelling to the Massachussetts Institute of Technology in Boston from Barbados. The pair are will meet with engineers from the Field Intelligence Lab and discuss the scheduled testing of performance of all technlogies being used in cricket.
This plan was originally recommended at the ICC meeting in Mumbai in May where it was decided that once the results are known, the DRS protocol and procedures would be reviewed. The testing is scheduled for the second half of 2015.
“Hopefully they will now put those testing processes in place, finalise those, then we can put our various technologies through the testing process, come out with a clean chit,” Richardson said. “If everyone is saying they are accurate, they are fit for purpose which will help I think convince some doubters that technology is not what it is cracked up to be.”
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