The real reasons why the BCCI opposes DRS

And it has little to do with 100% accuracy

16-Dec-2014

Spare a thought for the players. They celebrate and look like fools when a decision is overturned  •  Getty Images

A slew of questionable decisions in the first Border-Gavaskar Test have yet again brought to the fore the BCCI's continued opposition to the use of DRS in any and all its forms. The following leaked memo, however, has revealed that the reasons behind the board's obduracy has little to do with the much-touted inaccuracies of the system in the traditional sense, and that there is a whole lot more wrong with it than previously thought:

We have learned through painful experience that even with the DRS, decisions go in India's favour only some of the time. Since that already happens without the DRS, we fail to understand the point of it.

We remain concerned that HotSpot reveals more than just whether a batsman has nicked it or not. It also potentially stands to reveal mistakes made by our selectors, and we simply can't risk the loss of face. For example, HotSpot has of late failed to show evidence of a functioning brain within the skulls of some of our batsmen while trying to save a Test match. In some cases, specifically that of Wriddhiman Saha, there seems to be no evidence of a brain at all. So yeah... until these issues are sorted out, we remain against the use of such "technology".

The Snickometer does not account for the possibility of sabotage by ventriloquism. Obviously, you haven't heard of the recent case of a slip fielder who mimicked the sound of an edge and then threw his voice at the batsman just as the ball passed the bat. Yeah, didn't think so.

Virat Kohli's contract with a skin-lightening cream company specifically dictates that his face should always appear brighter on television than the rest of his body. Unless we find a way of showing his face as a lighter patch of grey than the rest of him, he's not going to be comfortable with appearing on HotSpot, etc.

Not even Dhoni, who you'd figure would be the one player who wouldn't mind being seen in infra-red not just on the field but off it as well, seeing as how it mutes all that hideous grey hair on and around his face, supports the DRS. That's mainly because he knows better than to do that, of course, but still.

Some of our more rustic, superstition-prone players are afraid that constant instant replays steal the soul.

We have it on good authority (never having seen such things for ourselves of course) that "HotSpot" shares the same name with a number of disreputable establishments in Bangkok. I mean, really. What kind of example are we setting the kids here exactly?

We've said it before and we'll say it again: the technology isn't 100% certain. As a board we take great pride in our abiding philosophy of doing things that enjoy only a 100% success rate. Like running a 100% corruption and scandal-free IPL tournament or cricket board. Is it too much to ask that we expect the same of the DRS?

It can be unnecessarily humbling for brash, fashionable young men full of beans to be reduced to seeing themselves in cold, grey monotone and apparently without a shred of warmth within their being. Really, infra-red camera? No evidence of heat anywhere on the body other than where the ball touches you? Not even the heart? That's harsh; some of these fashionable young players are involved in charitable works outside of cricket, you know.

Hello? What happened to giving the batsman the benefit of the doubt anyway? Since when did bowlers horn in on the action? Unless the DRS comes up with a way of giving the benefit of the doubt back to (Indian) batsmen, and not tattooed left-arm fast bowlers and spinners who appear out of nowhere to outbowl our own, anything else is just sullying the tradition of the game.

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R Rajkumar tweets @roundarmraj