In a way, the solidarity is touching. As Tubby, Slats and Pup know all too well it’s never pleasant to have your place in the side under scrutiny. So while it’s understandable that the former players are lining up behind Mitch Marsh in their commentary boxes around the globe, we have to be very clear: trying to shift the blame for his dismissal onto the DRS is stupid and potentially damaging to the game. Marsh was out, and Smith was out in the first innings. We stand with DRS.

The DRS has improved the quality and consistency of decisions immeasurably. For proof, one must only look at the number of obviously wrong decisions corrected by the DRS over the course of the match, hardly a particularly bad one for the human umpires. For a more spectacular example, try the recent England-Bangladesh series where Dharmasena had an absolute shocker.

There are two great advantages of the DRS over human umpires. Firstly, it is more precise that any human observer, even in slow motion. Secondly, the DRS is able to ignore a whole series of factors that the human mind is biased towards including in its analysis. The DRS doesn’t take into account the bowler’s reputation, whether the shot was ugly, what previous balls did or whether the batsman deserves to be out based on their innings to date. The DRS is a scalpel that pares down the decision to the objective facts. This is why on any objective measure the DRS is many times better than the human eye – even if those eyes belong to an Aussie legend like Warnie.

Now it is certainly true that the DRS isn’t perfect. It is, however, exceptionally accurate. If the DRS gets, say one in a few hundred wrong, what are we supposed to do – go back to a human umpire with a far worse accuracy? The greater issue is the Umpire’s Call feature. Eventually this should go, or only apply where there is a technical glitch. Clearly umpire’s call is a transitional arrangement that accommodates the idea of the umpire’s gut feelings that something was out or just sliding down leg having some part to play. Eventually any ball that the DRS finds is within a 95% confidence interval of touching the stumps1 will be out. It should be noted that almost all Umpire’s Call decisions are hitting the stumps, but you have to assume that 50% of these are called not out. Therefore as it stands Umpire’s Call constitutes a structural advantage to batsmen and women at a time when it has never been easier to bat. The latest change to the DRS system have correctly reduced this advantage, but it still stands.

Where will this leave umpires? The role of the on-field umpires in the future will be less as final arbiters and more as a facilitators of the game, and this will not necessarily be a bad thing. The umpires will act to speed up the game by giving the obvious calls and referring the more difficult ones, as it is with run outs today. Today no umpire calls a run out if it’s close, and no-one disputes that the game is better for it2 . In the face of constantly improving technology the umpires of the future will focus more on policing the conduct of the game, including over rates, which must be to the advantage of all.

There is a real risk with this outpouring of hatred against DRS is that anti-DRS attitudes will be hardened within the BCCI – leading to future tournaments where we go back to the bad old days of matches significantly impacted by dodgy decisions from human umpires. DRS is under attack from both cricket.com.au and the channel 9 commentary box. Let’s take a moment to appreciate all the DRS has done for us and will do for us in the future. We stand with DRS.

1. I expect that with time it might even be able to take into account factors like the firmness with which the stumps are driven into the ground to determine if enough force would have been imparted to dislodge a bail

2. While we’re at it, could we get a higher frame rate on the side on camera please ICC