For more than half a century England and Australia called the shots in the International Cricket Council. The other nations didn't matter when important decisions were taken.
Now the BCCI is virtually running world cricket.
It was the BCCI that objected to the whereabouts clause in the dope test, when the cricketing world had no objection to the clause — simply because the players of the richest body in the world wanted it removed.
And now the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS). Watching England versus Pakistan, the UDRS seems to have been fair to both the teams. In fact the technology helped the officials to run the series without any umpiring controversy.
In cricket, most of the dismissals are on the square either bat-pad, lbw, caught behind or low slip catches. UDRS ensures camera catches the connection of the bat with ball thereby removing any doubts from the minds of the batsmen about the accuracy of the verdict.
Technology can't go wrong if used properly but the Indian players are still unwilling to accept this solution.
The batsmen's psyche works differently. If one of the openers gets a bad decision, it plays on the minds of the other batsmen who follow him. In this case, Sehwag, Yuvraj and Raina got bad decisions.
Confidence is half-victory in cricket. Rohit Sharma's confidence seems to have ebbed with a couple of poor lbw decisions. A few more and he may be dropped.
Players' confidence
Unfortunately, the selectors don't have the tool to check the degree of a player's confidence.
Performance is the only criterion and those who don't deliver face the music. This is what the players have to realise.
In UDRS, the confidence level of a player is taken care of.
If a batsman is genuinely out, he will have to sort out his technical flaw after watching the video but if he's nicked it on the pads and is erroneously ousted on two or three occasions, he will be wary of his footwork the next time he takes a guard. And if the umpire is the same, his feet just won't move.
Bowlers too suffer. On the sub-continent pitches where the ball keeps low, catches behind the wickets are low.
On some grounds the slope makes it difficult for an umpire to decide whether a catch was taken cleanly either by a wicket-keeper or a slip fielder. And for spinners with three close-in fielders, a bat-pad catch is very difficult to judge.
And when the umpires give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman, bowlers too lose confidence. Very rarely do they get to bowl on bowler friendly pitches and when they don't get decisions in their favour, they flounder.
Most of the Indian umpires feel BCCI must accept UDRS. Pitching of the ball, its impact on pads and bat-pad decisions create problems for them. When technology is available, why not use it?
Inarguably, UDRS is most beneficial to all players. The top Indian players who are averse to accepting it, have quite unnecessarily made it a prestige issue.
Imagine Tendulkar or Sehwag getting a few bad decisions. However great they may be, they too will struggle.
It's for the BCCI to take a call and opt for the UDRS or we'll continue to pay the price for human errors.
