International Cricket Council (ICC) general manager Geoff Allardice on Thursday said India’s head coach Anil Kumble played an important role in convincing a reluctant Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to adopt the Decision Review System (DRS) on a trial basis in the upcoming home Test series against England.

India will be using DRS in the upcoming five-Test series, and then ICC will hold a meeting in early February to prepare a roadmap for the use of the technology further.

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“The fact that he was subsequently appointed as Indian coach; he obviously has that background going into his coaching position. He’s been very instrumental in the process that we’ve taken with the assessment of technology and the approval process and new technologies and things like that; he’s taken a methodical approach,” Allardice said during a telephonic conference ahead of the India-England Test series.

“He has been very supportive of the project. He was also in the ICC Cricket Committee meeting in May last year when the results when the majority of the tests were presented.”

“He was aware of the cricket committee’s position, which was that they wanted a more consistent use of technology across international matches.”

“I know he’s been part of the ICC Cricket Committee for I think for four years now, and one of the things that he was keen to do when he came on as Chairman was to make sure that the technologies that were used as part of DRS were assessed independently, and he’s driven a lot of that project, and it’s taken awhile to get to the stage where we’ve got results of testing, etc,” he added.

In the England series, the ICC will also make sure to make the use of DRS, as a permanent fixture for the BCCI.

“From the time we were advised by the BCCI that they would be using it in the England series, I think our focus has been on the delivery of DRS in that series and making sure we get the umpire appointments, to have an independent TV umpire, and making sure all the support staff and the equipment that goes with the DRS gets to those matches,” Allardice said.

“I think over the course of the next month or two, when we get a chance to talk to them, we’ll work out the steps beyond the England tour.”

“But in terms of assessing the performance of DRS, we’ll obviously provide any information or any views of ours on the performance of DRS during that series. I think it’s probably one the BCCI would be in a better position to answer as to what would shape their position for the future use of DRS technology,” he added.

IANS