ICC credits Kumble for upgraded DRS 

​Dubai: ICC’s General Manager of cricket affairs Geoff Allardice on Thursday termed India coach Anil Kumble's role as "instrumental" in assessing the upgraded Decision Review System and his support proved to be pivotal in using the technology in the upcoming England series.

Kumble, in his capacity as chairman of ICC's Cricket Committee, had gone to MIT where the engineers worked on the upgraded technology of DRS, which largely helped him convince BCCI to come on board for the England series.

During a teleconference with the Indian media, Allardice said: "I know he's (Kumble) been part of the pre-committee for I think 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.

"But he (Kumble) has been very supportive of the project. He was also in the pre-committee meeting in May last year when the results when the majority of the tests were presented. "He was aware of the pre-committee's position, which was that they wanted a more consistent use of technology across international matches," Allardice stated. "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 elaborated how much Kumble contributed in the process. BCCI has opposed DRS in principle as senior cricketers, including limited overs skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, found ball tracking technology not 'foolproof'.