India re-assess their DRS strategy

Test opener Murali Vijay says India have spoken about how to better use the Decision Review System after the hosts carelessly wasted their referrals in the first Test in Pune.

India burnt four reviews in the field during the opening Test and both batting reviews inside six overs in the fourth innings as they fell well short chasing an unreachable target of 441.

Vijay was one of the culprits in India’s second innings and says his team has discussed how to use technology to greater success for the remainder of the series, which they trail 1-0 with three matches left to play.

"At the moment it’s not going our way," said Vijay on Wednesday when asked if India had spoken about the DRS in the wake of the 333-run first Test loss.

"We got to take a little more time, I guess.

"We’ve got to use those 15 seconds much better."

For a long time India had been opposed the use of DRS, but relented in the Test series against England late last year.

Their inexperience with the technology has already hurt them in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy and a look at their track record does not make for pretty reading.

In the seven Tests since they adopted the DRS, India have asked for a review 55 times and been correct on just 17 occasions.

With the bat India have had more success, reviewing 13 decisions and having seven overturned.

But it's in the field where skipper Virat Kohli and his brains trust have struggled; of the 42 referrals in the field, only 10 have been proven correct by the third umpire, a success rate of just 23.8 per cent.

Speaking after his side had wrapped up an emphatic first Test win, Australia captain Steve Smith – who was the beneficiary of India burning their reviews when he survived an lbw appeal in Australia's second innings that would have been overturned had it been referred – said he has a simple game plan for using the DRS.

"It's nice to have one up your sleeve for the real shocker," Smith said.

"You don't want to guess too much on those sort of wickets.

"It was fortunate that their first two batters (Vijay and KL Rahul) used up the reviews early."

Test Squads

India (for first two Tests): Virat Kohli (c), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha (wk), Ravichandaran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Karun Nair, Jayant Yadav, Kuldeep Yadav, Abhinav Mukund, Hardik Pandya.

Australia: Steve Smith (c), David Warner (vc), Ashton Agar, Jackson Bird, Peter Handscomb, Josh Hazlewood, Usman Khawaja, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Stephen O'Keefe, Matthew Renshaw, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Matthew Wade

Australia's schedule in India

Feb 23-27, First Test, Pune

Mar 4-8, Second Test, Bengaluru

Mar 16-20, Third Test, Ranchi

Mar 25-29, Fourth Test, Dharamsala