Cricket’s wicked ways
The DRS (Decision Review System) has itself come under the hot spot in the current Ashes series being played in England. The series has clearly shown up the failure of technology in umpiring decisions and the unwitting tussle between the human eye of the umpires and the players and the apparently unerring, omniscient eye of such innovations as Hawkeye and Hot Spot.
To TV audiences the world over, it is a confusing scenario, with sometimes the third umpire who is the only arbiter with the right to consult TV replays, overruling the onfield umpire or, more often than not, concurring with his decision. In principal, the presence of a third umpire is not wrong, given the confusion often created on the field of play by overzealous appealing and the noisy crowds. In the first Test at Trent Bridge, six out of the 13 reviews led to a change of decision. But as shown in the series so far, even the third umpire can get it hopelessly wrong as in the weird dismissal of Australian batsman Usman Khwaja in the Old Trafford Test. The ball missed the bat by the proverbial mile, but the resultant wrong decision by the field umpire was not overturned by the third umpire.
Such poor decisions can sap the confidence of a struggling young batsman, even if the decision did not have too much bearing on that particular match. What did, however, was another poor decision during a critical juncture in an earlier match when a clear catch taken off the bat of English batsman Stuart Broad was given not out by the normally impeccable Aleem Dhar. The Australian side found themselves in a hapless situation as they had already wasted the two referrals allowed to the fielding side. The batsman went on to notch up a match winning partnership.
It would appear from the number of gaffes committed in this series that the umpirng fraternity is not properly trained in the use of all this ultramodern, thermal and infrared technology. To compound matters, they are not permitted the use of the snickometer, though the world at large can see on their TV screens if a ball has indeed just nicked the edge of the bat, thus putting mistakes by the umpire in the spotlight. Some of the oncamera LBW decisions also appear dodgy, especially under seaming English conditions, when the ball has to travel four or five metres before hitting or missing the stumps. Another peculiar aberration of the DRS is that if on referred replay a ball is found to only nick the edge of a stump, the onfield umpire’s not out decision stays, though of course in reality a batsman is out bowled whether the ball merely flicks off a bail or flattens all three stumps. Just as in tennis when a ball is deemed out of the sidelines whether it is out by an inch or by a metre. But cricket of course has its own eccentric rules. It just wouldn’t be cricket otherwise.
To add to the infantile scenario, BBG, the innovators of the Hot Spot system, now insists on the removal of an entirely imagined ‘coating’ on cricket bats which they say interferes with the ‘thermal signature’ of the Hot Spot system, conveniently forgetting the countless bat-pad decisions that an umpire has to make.
The BCCI’s lone stand against the DRS now appears to be completely vindicated. It has consistently opposed this dubious and faulty system even though all the other Test playing nations have gone with the tide and sworn by the unimpeachable might of technology. It is rather curious that in the ongoing Ashes series the stance India has taken has not been discussed at length by its redoubtable TV commentary team even during the long lunch breaks.
The ICC now has only 12 international umpires on its rolls, and among them there are no Indians. Indeed there have been none since S Venkataraghavan all those years ago. But given the present scenario, can the quality of Indian umpires be as indifferent as that on display in the Ashes series?
