Melbourne, Jan 13 (IANS) Former Australia wicketkeeper-batsman Brad Haddin on Wednesday said India have to live with bad decisions from the umpires until and unless they stop opposing the Decision Review System (DRS) technology.
The 38-year-old added the visitors were not in a position to complain given their refusal to adopt the DRS.
Replays and hot spot indicated Australia batsman George Bailey should have been out first ball, caught by India skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni down the leg side after he was flicked on the glove, but umpire Richard Kettleborough spared him.
From there Bailey bludgeoned a century in a record-breaking stand with Steve Smith, which helped Australia chase down India’s 309 and take a 1-0 series lead in the five-match One-Day International (ODI) series on Tuesday.
Dhoni attracted raised eyebrows with his response when asked whether he believed his team was punished with 50-50 calls going against them as a result of their position on the DRS.
“I may agree with you,” Dhoni replied to the reporter following his team’s loss to Australia in the first ODI, a match in which the non-dismissal of George Bailey cost them dearly.
“India are the ones that don’t want it, so they’ve got to live with these decisions,” Haddin was quoted as saying by Sky Sports Radio.
“They can scream as much as they want about whether it’s a conspiracy or that world cricket is against them, but they don’t want DRS so they are going to have to cop those sort of decisions on the chin,” he said.
The former Test vice-captain agreed that Bailey had been fortunate.
“They’re usually hard ones to give down leg side because you’ve got hands and legs and that everywhere. But I reckon that was obvious last night that came off the glove,” he said.
Dhoni and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) remain unmoved on India’s anti-technology stance and in particular their opposition to ball tracking.
New BCCI president Shashank Manohar said last month that unless DRS became “foolproof” the Indians would continue to refuse the technology.