The Decision Review System (DRS) became the talk of the town following an apparent timing error by the umpires during the opening day of the first Test between Sri Lanka and South Africa in Durban.

The incident occurred in the second over of Proteas’ innings when Sri Lanka pacer Vishwa Fernando struck Hashim Amla on the pads with a length ball shaping into the batsman, but umpire Aleem Dar remained unmoved.

After a short discussion with his troops, Sri Lanka skipper Dimuth Karunaratne raised his hand for the DRS signal. But he was in for a shock when umpire Dar told him that he had consumed more than the stipulated time to take the review.

Adding to Sri Lanka’s misery, replays later confirmed that Amla was plumb and the on-field decision of not-out would have been overturned.

Section 3.2.2 of the ICC's Test playing conditions state that: "The total time elapsed between the ball becoming dead and the review request being made shall be no more than 15 seconds," and "If the on-field umpires believe that a request has not been made within the 15 second time limit, they shall decline the request for a Player Review."

According to the commentators on the SuperSport broadcast, only 13 seconds had elapsed when Karunaratne signalled for the review. Apparently, Aleem Dar made no visible prompt to Fernando or the Sri Lankan players at the 10-second mark.

"The bowler's end umpire shall provide the relevant player with a prompt after 10 seconds if the request has not been made at that time and the player shall request the review immediately thereafter," the playing conditions read.

Luckily for Sri Lanka, Amla did not last much longer as Suranga Lakmal induced the South African No.3 into a false shot that was grabbed by Kusal Mendis at second slip.

(With inputs from ESPNcricinfo)