DRS - Saviour or Destroyer?

I have been unable to blog recently due to the amount of cricket going on around the world and every time there was something to criticise another incident worth abusing had occurred so I decided to have a look at the hot topic in cricket at the minute the dreaded Decision Review System or DRS.

This is one of my biggest concerns with cricket at the moment especially Test cricket the question which must be answered initially is if the changes will significantly improve either the standard or enhance the viewers pleasure? I would like to come up with reasons for and against but I am struggling as I only see cons with this latest piece of technology. The concept is all well and good and there are instances in other sports where this kind of system works but in cricket there are just too many times where it could be used so to limit each team to two is my first question?

The whole mantra of DRS is to eliminate the shocker get rid of the really bad decisions but the modern era consists of an elite panel of umpires all of whom are top officials and are very good at their job, the shocker had become less of an issue since the inception of this panel. So now we basically have two occasions where teams try and nick a wicket one which was clipping leg stump or hitting just on the line of the stumps it makes a mockery of the two men out in the middle who are robots constantly referring to the third umpire who has more to do these days in a Test match than the on field umpires.

Being in the top order now puts you doubly at risk, as Kevin Pietersen has recently stated, because it may be worth using a review to get the star player removed and by the time the middle or lower order are in there are no reviews left so less at risk. Also if two reviews are used up despite the system showing the batsman would have been out if the finger was raised initially (i.e. the ball was hitting the stumps but was an umpires call) the team using them have now been punished as they cannot use them later in the innings despite being essentially right in the reviews they decided to use.

Before it is enforced around the world by the ICC surely they must research if there are more wrong decisions previously than there are now. I would imagine it is few and far between so before spending fortunes on implementing this system would it not be better spent on rewarding players for playing Test cricket to lure them away from IPL cricket. All in all I think the only people in favour of DRS are spin bowlers who force batsmen to use their bat and I know many readers would see this as a good thing but it made for a pretty farcical series in Dubai recently where almost every delivery creating a possible DRS opportunity.

Let me just say I am not opposed to all technology introduced to cricket I think that the third umpire being used for line decisions was innovative and has proved a fantastic addition to the game of cricket because the majority of decisions are black and white it is either out or not, the same cannot be said for DRS. Another issue is all the time wasted while the decision is going on making what is quite a slow game even slower, I miss celebrating a wicket without thinking how many reviews each team has left and talking about decisions being right or wrong it is what makes cricket and sport great.