Hazlewood's plan to shake-up DRS use for Test cricket

Josh Hazlewood says the Decision Review System (DRS) would have a better impact in Test cricket if only one unsuccessful review was available for each team.

The DRS was introduced in 2008 to eliminate the 'howler' and has undergone several tweaks, most recently in June when the ICC increased the number of unsuccessful reviews to three per side per innings, up by one, as part of its updated playing conditions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the DRS has gone some way to achieving its goal of removing clear errors from the game, it is also often used by captains and batsmen more speculatively on decisions in which no obvious mistake has been made.

By reducing the number of permitted reviews to just one, Hazlewood believes players would use them only when certain a decision will be overturned.

And the fast bowler says the reduction would prevent umpires from making a decision with the number of reviews remaining as a consideration. 

"I'd review them all day if I could but to have a better impact on the game, I think one might work better," Hazlewood said on part two of The Unplayable Podcast's Ashes Revisited series.

"If you just had one each per innings then people would use it totally differently.

"I think umpires can fall into a trap of umpiring a little bit differently depending on who's got reviews left and how many they've got.

"They've got to umpire based on nothing there as well, but if you just had one each you'd save it, you wouldn't use it early unless you were positive and that's what it's there for, that howler."

Hazlewood knows how important it is to make the most of reviews having been involved in last year's Ashes, a series marred with DRS drama.

During the first Test at Edgbaston, 10 decisions were overturned on review. At Lord's, Australia missed a chance to review an lbw appeal against Ben Stokes late on day four when he was on six. The left-hander went on to make 115 not out as the visitors hung on for a tense draw.

All that came before the most memorable DRS moment of the series at Headingley.

Captain Tim Paine burned Australia’s last review in desperate hope of dismissing England’s No.11 Jack Leach, with Pat Cummins' delivery clearly pitched outside leg-stump. When Stokes, with England two runs away from victory, was given not out off Nathan Lyon the following over, Paine did not have a review left.

Replays confirmed Lyon's delivery had pitched in line, struck Stokes' pad in line and would have hit the stumps.

While it is far easier to make a judgement call on DRS use with the advantages television provides commentators and fans, it is significantly harder for players on the field who have just 15 seconds to weigh up all the available information.

Hazlewood says it was after the Lord's Test that the Australians got together to formulate a plan on how to decide whether to review a decision in the field, which has since been modified upon returning home last September.

"After that game we sat down and said, ‘Let's put a process in place’. At least we had something to fall back on if we don't know," Hazlewood explains.

"That was the bowler and the wicketkeeper and someone from side on comes in and we have a quick discussion why wasn't given out.

"That's why the square fielder comes in to say, ‘The height looked good from my angle’. The keeper (Paine) has a say, and he's obviously the captain as well, so that helps, and we make a quick call then and at least we have a process now we go through.

"If we get them wrong, we get them wrong, but hopefully it goes in our favour.

"It's not there for the 50-50 calls but when you're in the heat of the battle, you just want to get that wicket and you think it's out at the time.

"People sitting at home in their loungerooms see it on slo-mo and all the angles and we have to make a decision 15 seconds after it happens and we see it at 140kph."