Former Australia captain Steve Waugh has come out strongly in favour of the newly-introduced Umpire Decision Review System.

By Divyashree Gupta

In Delhi for the MCC World Cricket Committee meeting, Waugh said: "Initially I was against it, I believed that Test cricket was all about human element. But I've spoken to players who were involved in it, and now I'm quite willing to watch and see where it goes."

Waugh said he had talks with MCC's newly-inducted members Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid, who were part of the India-Sri Lanka Test series that tried out the system for the very first time. Waugh added the veteran Indian duo gave thumbs up to the review system and felt it helped ease tension out on the field as well as took some pressure off the umpires.

The World-Cup-winning captain went on to say, "I think the umpires are quite comfortable with it. It took a bit of animosity out of the game. It is a high pressure game. We want emotion and passion in a Test match, so we have to be careful that we don't regulate against that but at the same time players have an obligation to make sure that they play in the right spirit of the game. Kids watch at home and they duplicate what they see on television. At MCC, we are keeping an eye on it but at this stage, I think, the game is in pretty good shape."

Experimentation on the field has always been Waugh's second nature, and even after retirement he is game for trying new things. He is not averse to the idea of introducing a pink ball, in Test cricket. "I think we have to move with the times. We have to move with what the audience wants. I don't think it's such a big move, in fact it's exciting and if it attracts more people to the game and they can see the ball better and the spectators get more value for their money, that's really what we are after," the former Aussie Test captain said.

On being asked whether MCC's opinion matters to the International Cricket Council, Waugh said, "We're an independent voice. We can probably say some things which other people might never say, we're here just to throw things around through our concepts and ideas and put them out there. What ICC does with them is its choice."

Meanwhile, former South Africa captain Shaun Pollock said the committee was contemplating the idea of a Test championship. He said, "Test cricket is true test of the game. It is where cricket originated from. We'll have to do all efforts we can to keep it that way."

Talking about the effects of Twenty20, John Stephenson, head of Cricket, MCC said: "As a body we are here to monitor the health of the game and proliferation of T20 cricket is something we are concerned about. Especially at such an early stage, we felt that the evolution of the game over the last year or so has been so rapid and now is the time to take stock and make sure that there is some sort of monitoring of this sort of exponential growth of T20 cricket and how if affects Test cricket and the health of the game. The MCC is here to be the CONSCIENCE OF THE GAME."