The Decision Review System is cricket’s official technological séance: a team’s right to ask the universe (and a large television) whether the umpire might, just might, have been wrong.
Born from years of players waving their arms in disbelief, the Decision Review System is the sport’s polite way of saying, “We would like to escalate this complaint.” Each review unleashes a small committee of cameras, ball-tracking algorithms, and slow-motion replays that manage to be both definitive and wildly inconclusive.
The ritual follows a familiar rhythm: a hopeful “T” sign, a captain trying to look wise, and a batter who suddenly becomes a legal scholar of impact, pitching, and the metaphysics of “umpire’s call.” Meanwhile, the crowd behaves like a weather system, producing gusts of noise every time a graphic turns amber.
DRS has improved accuracy, reduced howling injustice, and increased the time everyone spends staring at Hawk-Eye like it’s a medical scan. Still, it remains cricket’s most human invention: a high-tech mirror reflecting how desperately we all want to be right.
Most DRS decisions are like refusing to accept you’ve built the IKEA bookshelf backwards, even as the instructions, the screws, and gravity disagree with you.
