The chief of the Australian Cricketers' Association has urged the ICC to re-evaluate its neutral umpires policy and invest more money in improving the technology used in the Decision Review System (DRS).
This came following the decision of Kumar Dharmasena to not overturn on-field umpire Tony Hill's caught-behind verdict against Australian batsman Usman Khawaja, which sparked an outcry on social media with Cricket Australia (CA) seeking an explanation from the ICC over the 'howler'.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Paul Marsh called for the ICC to stop relying on the TV broadcaster for footage, the quality of which varies around the world, especially after even Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd slammed the decision, calling it as 'one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions he had ever seen'.
Although a fan of DRS, Marsh said that even if the technology was not to blame for the latest controversy, it is now time for the ICC to open their pockets for the sake of the game, adding that the global cricket governing body should get every board and every broadcaster in the world using the same technology.
Marsh further said that it is time to review the neutral umpire policy given that Ashes is the biggest Test series in world cricket, adding that there has been too many poor decisions in this series so far.
Believing the footage provided by UK broadcaster Sky Sports had contributed to the furore this series surrounding DRS, Marsh further said that DRS is going to 'live or die' by the quality of the technology, although he was quick to note that Khawaja's dismissal was a 'massive human error', one that was caused by the ICC's umpire of the year.
According to Marsh, Dharmasena deserved to be axed from the next Test for making such a big mistake, although the report feared that such a happening would leave only three members of the ICC's 12-man elite umpires panel available for the final two Tests of the series with the other members being either English or Australian.
CA made the rare move of lodging an official complaint after the howler as the report said that there was no Hot Spot evidence of contact with the bat, nor a noise or deviation from the bat and, adding that replays showed that Khawaja's bat had flicked his pad, hence the Snickometer reading of a slight sound just before the ball arrived.