by Facing the sweltering heat and Rajkot’s usually flat wicket,articular Instead, England can’t even sully themselves by complaining about the umpire: they have only themselves to blame.
The two centurions, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, were lucky to land lbw appeals. In both cases, if England had chosen to use the Decision Review System, they would have seen the ball hit the stumps, hit the pad in line with the stumps and then proceed to the stumps: the three reds need a bowling side. . Rohit had scored 87 when he was hit on the pad trying to sweep Rehan Ahmed. The ball would crash into leg stump; it is not certain that Rohit would be out as the ball was very close to his gloves, although it looked like he missed it. He added another 44 runs.
Then, Jadeja reached 93 when Tom Hartley got a ball to go straight. The ball would have hit the batsman’s stumps, but the bowler hardly tried to talk to Ben Stokes by using a review. Jadeja had made another 17 runs by the end, and was still unbeaten.
Two Test matches ago, on the opening day in Hyderabad, England did the opposite with their reviews, losing all three reviews within the opening 14 overs of India’s innings. Two of these reviews were lost while trying to get Hartley an opening Test wicket. It embodies how Stokes extends the creativity and confidence of instinct, which made him such a great captain, to DRS. Here, the results were not quite good.
With three revisions, teams have used at least one per inning for a long time. There is also some logic to this method: a 25 percent chance of, say, being fired is worth more than a 30 percent chance of Steve Smith firing Josh Hazlewood. Against better players, the calculated risk of using a review can sometimes be understood, if a wicket is paid more.
But England’s experience on the opening day in Rajkot, when they did not review two lbw decisions that would have hit the stumps yet reviewed one, from James Anderson to Rohit Sharma, did not add to the impression that DRS . one area Stokes has yet to master. In a blend of the art and science of cricket, the coolness of the technology puts the DRS more in the science category.
It was a truth that Andrew Strauss understood when he led his team to No. 1 in the Test rankings in 2011, the only time England have been the top-ranked side in the world since 1980. With DRS in its infancy, Strauss tried to remove emotions from the team’s decision-making. The approach was particularly important and Stuart Broad could no more accept that a review of his delivery was worth using than a parent admitting a fault to their child.
After the introduction of the DRS “in a way, the team captain had to become a de facto umpire himself, trying to judge whether the original decision was correct by the umpire,” Strauss wrote in his autobiography. His solution was to devise a structure for choosing when to review. Two of the bowlers, the wicketkeeper Matt Prior and Strauss himself, had to be convinced that it was wise to review before the captain did so; in case it was a height issue, fielders would be consulted on point or square leg as well. While bowlers tended to be overzealous at the prospect of a review of their success, Strauss was “always grateful for the more measured and precise answers” from Prior. One undeniable advantage of establishing such a relationship is having a Test keeper set up.
In order to maintain excellence, advising DRS is an area of the game where Ben Foakes is still learning, especially in India. “It’s so hard for me here,” he said earlier in the trip. “Sometimes there’s obviously a lot of noise going on out here and a lot of people think they’ve heard certain things or seen certain things so maybe we need to do it smarter.”
Although England enjoyed greater freedom under Stokes’ reign, this principle does not apply as well to the use of technology. “Generally we don’t have too much structure,” assistant coach Paul Collingwood said. “Foakes is in a vital spot on the pitch. The bowler himself can get quite emotional. All you have to do is listen to the guys out there. Normally, a square person of the wicket will tell you how high a ball is, whether it hits the pad first, that sort of thing. But it can be difficult.”
Difficult, but also crucial. For all the differences in character between Stokes’ team and the team led by Strauss, how to use DRS is one area where England can borrow from the class of 2011.
