Why have the ICC decided to not make DRS mandatory in international cricket?

The ICC’s annual meeting in Kuala Lumpur welcomed the great and the good from world cricket to discuss a number of issues relevant in the game. However arguably the most important of these was the view on whether the DRS system should be made compulsory in bi-lateral series rather than the current format where both teams must agree to use the system.


This issue obviously caused opposition from the Indian cricket representatives as they have always felt that the DRS system was not fully correct and therefore they don’t choose to use this system in their series. Why is this though as the majority of teams do choose to use it and see it as a development in the game which reduces the extent of human error by umpires?


If the system is deemed adequate to use so that both countries agree to use it, why is it not adequate to be made compulsory? Other issues could lie that some teams could be getting an unfair advantage from not using it as if you were in a home series then it could be argued that umpires may give more decisions to the home team naturally. Surely by making the ruling mandatory it would mean that decisions would be the same across the board.


However there were some positives to the outcome of this meeting as now hotspot has to be used when DRS is chosen by both teams. This makes DRS a package that includes everything apart from ‘snick-o’ and so no teams are able to ‘cherry pick’ which tools they want to use. Even though this is an improvement to the existing rule it still isn’t consistent across the game and all teams should have to use the same system otherwise rankings aren’t completely accurate.


If India are able to have such an impact on these meetings and able to have such a hand in the outcome in these decisions is this fair and can it be said that the ICC are slightly scared of India due to the amount of money that India brings to cricket.


Personally I feel that cricket should be made more consistent and with a system that applies to all teams and not just those who choose it. Until then it can’t be considered completely fair. There is obviously always going to be conflict when considering decisions as big as this however the ICC needs to be bolder. If not, cricket won’t develop and India will continue to have too much of a hand in the outcome in these sorts of decisions in the future.