The International Cricket Council (ICC) has ended the mandatory use of Decision Review System (DRS) and reverted to its pre-June position, by which its use will be subject to bilateral agreements between the participating boards.

The organisation’s executive board, which met in Dubai on Monday also approved the new Associates and Affiliates qualifying system for the 2015 World Cup, agreed to make the findings of the independent governance review panel public and expressed a preference for a Test Championship in 2013.

“Although the DRS improves correct umpire decisions by around five per cent and corrects any blatant errors, there are some who are not convinced by its reliability,” Haroon Lorgat, the ICC’s chief executive”, said in a press release on Tuesday.

“We will continue to work with interested parties to improve the system while permitting the participating teams to decide whether they wish to use it or not,” he said.

The decision on the DRS marks a reversal from the agreement reached betweenthe ICC and its member boards at the annual conference in Hong Kong, when HotSpot was made mandatory subject to availability and the use of ball-tracking wasleft to the playing boards to decide.

However, the ICC’s executive board said the DRS would still be used in all ICC global events and that they support the use of technology and would continue to work on its development.
In addition, the ICC asked the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and the Bangladesh Cricket Board to submit their nomination for the ICC Vice-Presidency for 2012-14, in accordance with its current constitution.

The qualifying system for the next World Cup will have the top two teams in the current eight-team Associates and Affiliates ODI 50-over League that is being played until October 2013 progressing automatically.
The remaining six teams will then join four other teams from the World Cricket League (the teams placed 3rd and 4th in Division 2 and teams placed 1st and 2nd in Division 3) in a second ten-team qualifying event. The two finalists from that event will also progress to the World Cup.