Ashes Series 2013 Fixtures: Breaking Down Australia's Misuse of DRS Review

Australia are clearly the second-best side in the Ashes at present, but they have made a difficult job of regaining the urn even harder by their woeful misuse of the DRS system.

You can certainly make an argument that had Australia used technology correctly, they would have had won the first Test. 

They went on to lose it by 14 runs—when Stuart Broad got a huge edge in the second innings, he was given not out and Australia could do nothing about it because they had already frittered their reviews away.

Broad went on to add another 28 runs—the cushion England needed to get the game won.

England had bad luck as well, and there are many moments in a game where players score more or less than they should because a decision goes for or against them—but clearly, this might have been a 1-0 lead for the tourists in the Ashes—and from then, who knows what road the series would have taken?

The purpose of DRS is simple: it is to be used when the umpire makes a decision that is clearly wrong. Then, with the aid of technology, the original call can be overturned.

It is a concept Australia have not been able to master.

England captain Alastair Cook has a simpler process in place. If they appeal in the field, all three of captain, bowler and wicketkeeper must agree that it is worth referring the decision.

So how have Australia gone wrong?

No, really: Shane Watson can't believe he is not out

When he's batting, Shane Watson plants his front foot down and, sooner or later, he misses a full ball.

What he cannot accept, however, is that the bowler has got him leg-before wicket. 

So he reviews, and, routinely, he wastes one of Australia's two available decisions.

As Australian cricket writer Gideon Haigh put it in The Australian (subscription required - h/t The Guardian):

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[Watson] could sell advertising space on his pads, so prominently are they featuring in each day's play.

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The problem is that with one review left between the other 10 batsmen, the Aussies are reticent to use another. This led to the dismissal of Chris Rogers at Lord's; DRS would have shown he was not out to Graeme Swann, but he feared leaving his team-mates without a review.

The positive news for Australia is that Watson appears to have learnt about DRS, not referring his second-innings dismissal at HQ.

The bad news is that he was out again in exactly the same fashion.

In the field: Michael Clarke freely admits he's getting it wrong

Michael Clarke blew it at Trent Bridge. They wasted a referral on a speculative lbw decision early in the second innings. Then, when Broad was clearly out and everyone except the umpire saw it, he had no way of getting the decision overturned.

Not every captain is so honest, but Clarke told journalists after the first Test at Trent Bridge that his own decision-making on DRS was not up to scratch. In the Guardian he was quoted as saying:

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If I had used my reviews better then I have an opportunity to use it when there is a howler like that. We've still got two umpires on the field. They are the most important people out on the ground and they make their decisions.

I have been brought up to live with the decision of those guys. The advantage you have now, especially as a batsman, is that if you think you didn't hit the ball, you have the chance to refer it.

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Batsmen: Not knowing when you've hit the ball

It is often said that a batsman instinctively knows whether they have hit the ball or not. But as Clarke himself proved, that's not always the case. 

He reviewed a decision at Trent Bridge when he felt he had not hit the ball. The use of Hot Spot technology proved that he had feathered it to the wicketkeeper.

As Clarke was quoted by the Guardian: 

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I didn't think I'd hit it, and I asked my partner [Steve Smith] and he didn't think I had either. We were pretty pumped in the middle because we couldn't see a mark on the big screen. But when I got back to the change room it showed a tiny mark. That's the way it goes. I've said to all our team that if you feel you're not out to back your judgment.

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Cutting Australia some slack: They've had bad luck

England have looked like gurus of the DRS system, but in truth cricket is a game of millimetres and England have come out on the right side of decisions in the Ashes so far.

At Trent Bridge Swann reviewed an lbw appeal against Philip Hughes. It was given not out on the field because it looked as if the ball had to have pitched outside the leg stump. But by the narrowest of margins, it turned out that the ball had landed in line with the stumps. It was one of a handful of decisions which could so easily have swung the game a different direction.

The bigger issue: Umpires getting it wrong

Umpires make mistakes. That much has been true since the game began centuries ago, and it will always be the case. 

Technology presents the umpires with a chance to correct their understandable mistakes, but it has also given them an entirely new way to cock things up.

Most DRS errors are the result of the television umpire not following the correct protocol when considering a review.

His job is to overturn an original verdict only if there is a compelling reason to show it was the wrong call.

In the second Test at Lord's, Tony Hill considered a review for an edge against Ashton Agar. It was given not out originally, England appealed. When Hot Spot showed nothing and all Hill had to go on was a sound, that should have been enough doubt for the original call to stand. Instead it was overturned. 

This has not just affected Australia; Jonathan Trott got a rough decision in similar circumstances at Lord's when TV umpire Marais Erasmus overturned a not out call when there was doubt over whether the ball hit bat or pad first.

Where next for DRS?

India, famously, do not consider the DRS system reliable enough to use when they play. But while the ICC admitted that as many as seven mistakes had been made with DRS in the first Test, they also pointed out that they have improved the overall accuracy of decisions. The Indian Express quotes their statement:

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The umpiring team was assessed to have made seven errors during the match, out of which three were uncorrected decisions and four decisions were corrected using the DRS.

As such, the correct decision percentage before reviews stood at 90.3 per cent but climbed to 95.8 per cent as a result of the use of the DRS. This represented an increase of 5.5 per cent in correct decisions, which was the average increase from DRS Test matches in 2012-13.

When coupled with the conditions, with reverse swing and spin playing an important role, and the added intensity of the first Ashes Test, it was a difficult match to umpire.

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DRS has too many upsides to disappear now. It will stay, and it will improve as time goes on. Umpires must learn to work with it better, and there is an argument for specialist television umpires to make sure that the system itself eradicates controversy, rather than adding to it.