Former international umpire Ian Gould has discussed how his attitudes towards the Decision Review System (DRS) changed over the course over his career, going from being “pretty hostile” to much more open.

In an interview with ESPNcricinfo, Gould gave one anecdote which demonstrated how he was sceptical of it for a time, with the match official taking out his frustration on the playing equipment after one of his decisions was overturned in an ODI between West Indies and Zimbabwe in 2013. In the final over of Zimbabwe’s innings, Gould gave out Chris Mpofu lbw after the tail-ender was deceived by a Dwayne Bravo slower ball.

With Zimbabwe nine down, the No.11 chose to review simply because his team had one referral left, and the two sides had to be called back after HawkEye showed a surprising result.

“Oh yeah, I kicked the stumps over in a West Indies-Zimbabwe game,” Gould said. “Both teams had walked off the field. Straight ball by Dwayne Bravo, hit Mpofu on the foot, he’s turned round, limped off. Everyone’s gone back. I’m standing there with my partner. There’s a review just because they had one left. We had to bring them all back.”

Gould says that now, people are more clued up about how the technology underpinning DRS works, but that there are still some decisions that raise an eyebrow.

“That was in the old days,” he said. “Talking to Paul Hawkins [inventor of HawkEye] about it – some of the things then weren’t as good as they are now. You can watch it now and there’ll be the odd one you go, ‘Hmm, wasn’t sure about that’, but a high percentage of it is spot on. I remember being told, “HotSpot can’t work because it’s too sunny, too hot.” What do you mean by that? But that was back in the dark ages. Now you don’t get any of that.”