A wish for 2010
I think the ICC will realise that you can't have a situation where decisions are shown to be out or not out, but can't be challenged as teams have run out of challenges. Yes, they've been slow to roll out the use of technology to aid umpires and done it badly, but I have full confidence that even they will identify this area for a change during 2010.
We'll see come this time next year if that proves correct!
5 comments:
I disagree. The system is there to correct 'howlers', not to mete out some sort of 'millimetre justice' (which the UDRS cannot deliver anyway): if a decision is merely mildly questionable, it shouldn't be challenged. As of yet, it would appear neither players nor umpires fully understand that.
Compare with the tennis: players have three (incorrect) challenges in each set (plus an extra for tie breaks). This works quite well because everybody seems to understand that it is not wise to challenge line calls they simply wish would be different. (Well, OK, everybody but Federer anyway, who is an absolutely useless 'challenger'.)
I can see your argument, but I think the referrals that ended up being given today in the England v SA game against Smith and de Villiers show why a change is needed. SA "wasted" referrals but the batsman had every right to feel agrieved as they shouldn't have been given given the ball was only just clipping the stumps. Now if they get a real howler they may not be able to refer.
in the tennis it's different. It's either in or out. No debate after hawk-eye (other than technical inaccuracies, perhaps)
in cricket you need to have these guidelines. Whether the ones we have at the moment are right is very debatable...
Smith "wasted" his referral on the desperate hope that something would reveal the decision to be incorrect. I think on first view it looked plumb and was surprised how close it was in the end. Smith made the decision that as SA's last recognised batsman it was tactically worth taking the last referral and thereby denying it to his team-mates It didn't pay off but that was Smith's fault rather than the system. I think we have also seen a refreshing lack of howlers so far this series which is good to see.
Hmmm. To the naked eye I thought Smith's looked very leg-sidish Jez given the angle from round the wicket! I would have felt agrieved to have been given out to that....
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