It needs fine-tuning, but cricket should embrace the Decision Review System according to Sky Sports pundit Bob Willis.

I'm all in favour of using technology to get the right verdict in sport so fully endorse the use of the Decision Review System in next month's Test series between South Africa and England.

In fact, I'd like to think cricket can be a pioneer in this field and that everybody will work together to ease the pressure on umpires. Who knows, that might even attract more people - including more ex-international players - to the profession!

Some decisions - such as catches in the outfield where it looks as though the ball has bounced when it's gone straight into a player's hands - are always going to cause a problem.

But at least like rugby and tennis we are taking steps to avoid gross injustices of the scale seen in football, such as the Thierry Henry incident that led to the Republic of Ireland's World Cup exit.

Cricket should run with technology providing it gets the fine-tuning right. Do we want a player-instigated or an umpire-instigated system?

Personally, I would take responsibility out of the players' hands and leave it to the officials. The third umpire should either be able to inform the standing officials that they have made a mistake or the men in the middle could radio up for help with a decision.

Moreover, there's no reason why the fourth official should not be responsible for deciding on front-foot no-balls just as a judge sits by the long-jump pit in athletics to decide if it is a fair jump or not.

All the fourth official would have to do is push a button to signal it's a no ball; I'm sure he could manage that in between changing the ball and carrying the drinks - plus the cameras are already in place to adjudicate on run outs and stumpings.

The bottom line is that we should try to make umpires' lives as easy as possible.

I wouldn't be against rotating three officials during a game, moving between on-field and TV replay duties to keep them fresh and give them a rest from standing out in the sunshine.

That would give us three umpires working in a team all with the same status and one wouldn't be seen as secondary to the others.

Of course, advances in television technology are partly to blame for putting more pressure on umpires, placing their decisions under increased scrutiny, so it's only right that improvements should also help them.

But who pays for the decision review system (DRS)? Simple. The ICC. It cannot be the responsibility of a host broadcaster to provide and pay for equipment for the running of the game.

I suppose the dollars and dimes essentially all come out of the same pocket in the end - namely TV revenue - and broadcasters should certainly be involved in the development of the technology.

But if you are covering an unfashionable Test match and the TV rights aren't worth very much, you can't really expect a host broadcaster to fork out for Hot Spot and Hawkeye.

Unfortunately, technology has helped to reveal that the current standard of international umpiring is for the most part poor.

We only have two world-class umpires in the game in Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar; the rest are a long way behind them.

I'm not privy to the ICC hit parade of umpires but with Rudi Koertzen and Daryl Harper appearing regularly on the circuit you've got to think the standard of those challenging them isn't too clever.

David Richardson, the ICC's general manager, seems to be of the opinion that the DRS will encourage more batsmen to walk and reduce excessive appealing.

It's a nice thought but some of the great names in cricket used to walk when they had 150 but didn't when they had two so the system has always been open to abuse.

The problem is that players are taught at a very early age in South Africa and Australia not to walk but to wait for the umpire's decision and when it comes you don't argue with it.

Adam Gilchrist broke that mould and I hope similarly that bowlers all around the world take it on themselves to reduce excessive appealing.

I remember reading one article that suggested banning appealing entirely. That would place the onus entirely on the umpires. But we are no longer at that point. Technology is very much part of today's game and we'd be fools not to embrace it.