17 February 2010

Review of Reviews

The Editor's view in The Cricket Society News Bulletin this month contains a number of observations on what I think has become an absurd system that really does not work. I have picked out a few of the points for further thought.

This winter you had a better chance of surviving an appeal in South Africa than in Australia where they had all the technology. Surely it makes sense for there to be a uniform requirement and, as the Television Networks use all of them they should be made available to the third umpire as part of the tendering process.

Once again, the question arises as to whether referrals should be restricted to umpires alone. I firmly believe that this should be the case. Also I understand that, at professional level, the square leg umpire is not encouraged to help with lbw appeals by indication the height of the ball. This happens all the time in club cricket and is encouraged on the training courses.

In summary, the whole review process needs to be reviewed and the technology agreed and standardised.

1 comment:

Ed said...

Yes, I agree with you that the umpires should use the technology as they wish rather than players challenging decisions.

Sadly the ICC/boards were very much behind the times so when they last negotiated TV rights they hadn't forseen an obvious requirement for technology. Or they had, but assumed they'd fund it and subsequently changed their mind. Either way, a massive mistake given that so many observers were future planning better than them.