>You're missing this check at the top of the code:
>
>And you are missing the point. There is a dropdownlist called ddlType in the ItemTemplate defined for that column. The code in grdPhones_RowDataBound() should return an object reference to the dropdownlist, but it doesn't.
>
>That is the problem that I am trying to solve. This is a work in progress that I am testing incrementally, so I am not interested in making the code bullet-proof at this point in time. I am interested in finding out what I need to do to get back the object reference to the dropdownlist.

I'm not missing any points. If you're not on the DataItem column, you would not find any comboboxes.

Re-read my suggestion one more time.

Just add this code at the top of your method and see if ddl would not be null this time.