***Official*** DRS discussion thread

[Black_Warrior]

No point blaming BCCI or other cricket boards here.. you have to blame the original culprit - Ajanta Mendis.
If Mendis had not humiliated Indian batsmen in the 2008 series when the DRS was first tested, we would not be having this conversation today.

[Cevno]

Has the Hotspot in South Africa been ordered from China or something ? Been bloody dodgy.

Was watching highlights yesterday and for one appeal on replay there was a slight mark which showed up on the bat, and after a few seconds it appeared on his pad.

Every time it is reviewed it barely shows anything registering too. FAF and Misbah being different interpretations due to that.

[uvelocity]

spot fixing

[Cevno]

Originally Posted by SJS

Yes astro turf was brought. But many other countries just went ahead and started using astro-turf in all their major centres. India just refused and except for Delhi, they did not have astro-turf anywhere in the country. Everytime the team had to go out of the country to play, the players had to be brought to Delhi for a quick camp and getting used to astro-turf.

Of course, that wasn't enough.

The rough and uneven grounds of the past were ideal for the short pass and the ball control of the Indian and Pakistani players where as the smooth, consistent astro-turf meant players with less than the fabulous stickwork of the sub-continental players could now resort to trapping and hard hitting, long passes and suddenly from field goal artists, the penalty corner specialists became the stars. The game changed. But the same had happened when tennis started moving away from grass courts. The world just adapted.

Indians refused to do so for a couple of decades and by the time they got astroturf all over the country, they had lost an entire generation of players and the country's rankings in the sport had hit rock bottom.
What's the point in talking of conspiracy theories?

You didn't get the point. Yes, the world has to adapt but decisions in every sport are forced by those holding money power. Especially, in sports with smaller number of nations.

And if you want to debate Astro Turfs then the South Asians couldn't adapt to it quickly and lost a generation of players because their skills were honed on grass from the beginning, unlike the Europeans/Australians who had astro turfs available. Now to adapt you had to start from a basic level and bring in high level of coaching and build facilities everywhere. Astro turfs were also pretty expensive back then too, and to have them all across the country for young players to train on wasn't possible as Indian economy wasn't as large back then, and Indian Hockey barely has much money now, let alone back then.

It'll be like BCCI making some sort of expensive pitches mandatory in Cricket which would mean poorer boards couldn't afford that many of them.

[centurymaker]

Originally Posted by harsh.skm

Apologies for talking about other sports on CW, but then since we've been going on about politics for some time, I figured we already burnt that bridge. Astroturfs were introduced in Hockey in the 70s, and have led to increase in player safety, a faster, more precise game, and low maintenance costs. That is the official stand. What it also led to was the dethroning of then champions, India and Pakistan. With astroturf, the major skill-set required to excel was that of the European style of play, i.e. endurance and strength, and precise passing. The Indians and Pakistanis relied much more on the dribbling and ball trapping skills, and know-how of playing on the field. Moreover, at that point of time, the Indian and Pakistani board weren't rich enough to be able to implement the astroturf on their home grounds, and thus were not able to compete at the international level.

Administrators failed to realize that players who have spent a great part of their lives developing skills on natural turf cannot just change their game overnight and perform on synthetic turf. The kind of adjustments required in speed, endurance, anticipation, and more importantly, ball distribution skills were significant enough to render the Indian teams largely ineffective in most situations. Natural turf with its uneven bounce requires players to watch the ball closely till the last second to control the ball. Astro turf with its predictable bounce and speed requires players to commit to the ball as early as possible. Also, shouldn't the administrators have at least made sure that the two champion teams from their era would be given enough funds to become competitive in this format, or at least made the change very gradually as to not render them incompetent.

The transformation of the game in the 70s resulted in a "product" that was definitely a faster brand of field hockey with swift crisp passes – a perfect stage to showcase pure athletic skills. One can say that field hockey now resembles a crude version of ice hockey. The European and American audiences haven't fall for this bait – ice hockey continues to dominate their mind space and field hockey has never really taken off there. At the same time, Indian audiences have increasingly lost interest in the game as their teams could never adapt to synthetic turf. Not only has the new game of hockey failed to attract world-wide audiences, it has blatantly ignored the biggest sport market for hockey in the world.

wow. what a story. little wonder then that hockey isn't really a global sport.

[Black_Warrior]

I still support DRS as a system despite the howlers yesterday..
A system cannot be blamed for personal prejudice and bias in people.

DRS as a system still works and allows us to review and correct genuine mistakes.

[Agent Nationaux]

I also still support DRS despite the technical fault. However the third umpire should be reported for his inconsistency in making the decisions.

[Jono]

Originally Posted by Black_Warrior

No point blaming BCCI or other cricket boards here.. you have to blame the original culprit - Ajanta Mendis.
If Mendis had not humiliated Indian batsmen in the 2008 series when the DRS was first tested, we would not be having this conversation today.

[uvelocity]

Originally Posted by Black_Warrior

I still support DRS as a system despite the howlers yesterday..
A system cannot be blamed for personal prejudice and bias in people.

DRS as a system still works and allows us to review and correct genuine mistakes.

the system allows it hence the system is faulty

[uvelocity]

and another drs howler

[Jono]

uvelocity making good points.

[wellAlbidarned]

Whenever the DRS "messes up" it's on borderline 50/50 calls which could easily have gone either way, so it's pretty damn inaccurate to call them howlers.

[Jono]

Its a howler to overturn something for no reason.

[Scaly piscine]

Here come the ****wits to argue bad umpiring legitimises the BCCI scumbags position.

[wellAlbidarned]

I agree, but when has that happened?