Sri Lanka v England: DRS tests Tillakaratne Dilshan's patience but it is still the best call To think that only a few minutes earlier we had received a missive from the International Cricket Council declaring that Dilshan had been fined 10 per cent of his match fee for excessive appealing on the third day. We may just be receiving another such email on Saturday. Three balls later in this 36th over of the innings, there was another appeal. The left-handed Kumar Sangakkara pushed forward and Swann appealed plaintively. Oxenford rejected the appeal, but for once England captain Andrew Strauss agreed with his spinner. A review was called. This did not take as long. The ball was tracked to be hitting only the top of off stump. The call remained with the umpire. Sangakkara was not out. There was some incredulity. The Hawk-Eye predictive path technology is not universally trusted. Recently in a Test between South Africa and New Zealand in Dunedin, Jacques Kallis said 99 per cent of cricketers were unsure of the accuracy of its rival, the Virtual Eye. The next morning its creator, Ian Taylor, threatened to withdraw its use. It wasn't, but independent tests are being undertaken at Cambridge University on Hawk-Eye and Virtual Eye. The results should be known in time for the ICC's next meeting in May. Friday's two incidents, though, provided ammunition for those still wishing to gun the system down. They have powerful support from India, who will not use the DRS. There was a period not so long ago when the system was mandatory. Now it requires the consent of both countries. But the DRS is here to stay. To complain of it is like moaning of old age. It's going to happen. It aids the game, not hinders it. Guess why England's tour here in 2001 was one of the most rancorous ever? The standard of umpiring. Players turned on officials, and then on opponents. Now they just turn on the DRS system. That can't be a bad thing. More correct decisions are made. Of course, the system is not perfect. The wait of 4min 58sec on Friday was too long. And using the system without HotSpot is undesirable. So money sources must be found, and that does not just mean ICC handouts. Sponsors must be sought. And parameters must be altered. In the eyes of the tracking technology, the stumps are now higher and wider. The ball only needs to be clipping the stumps to support an umpire's out lbw decision. So, as Simon Hughes noted in these pages recently, the bowler's potential target area has increased by 70 per cent. That is too much. Umpires' egos are more highly valued than batsmen's wickets. Sometimes, of the three key decisions made on an lbw call - where the ball pitched, where it hit the batsman's pad and the predicted path - at least two of these are found to be "umpire's calls." That is too marginal. Two of those and the decision should be overturned. The truth is, though, that the system was designed to eradicate howlers. These were not howlers on Friday. We move on.