Interesting...
...to see that DJ Harper referred a catch to the 3rd umpire, despite having full view of the incident in the Sri Lanka v England match today. You can read more at Cricinfo. When umpires ignore the regulations suggesting that they can't refer catches to the 3rd umpire unless they are unsighted, it's pretty safe to say that there is a problem.
3 comments:
But surely this contradicts your comment below! I think that the technology should be used to make the correct decision and if in doubt the umpire should refer it to the third umpire. The interesting thing about the "catch" was that it came off the batsman's shoulder but the referral was to judge whether the ball had carried. A good case of the right decision for the wrong reason! As a budding umpire, I think that the principle that the umpire should use his discretion is correct and his decision is final must be upheld.
I agree more with your earlier comment. I am getting very frustrated with this argument at international level that umpiring is a terribly difficult job, and you get some bad decisions and get on with it. As your previous comment suggests, the technology can expose whether the umpire was in the right (or in the case of lbws, within reasonableness) and if the umpire fails, they should not be offered the next match, or should be scored accordingly.
I actually prefer, in order to manage the appeals and to make it easier for the technology to be used correctly, the introduction of the 3 appeals system for each side from tennis, which to my mind has worked extremely well, and the appeals could also be used to score the effectiveness of the umpires.
This would fairly rapidly mean that the decisions would be referred more often, but as cricket has demonstrated, but football refuses to accept, this does not slow the game down very much (and in tennis actually makes a spectacle of the result, with increased audience participation).
Pietersen's decision was literally breath-takingly bad, and clearly in full view of everyone, so as you say, why resist the inevitable. This on the back of some terrible lbw decisions (against England) in the first test that in my opinion did materially affect the result - even if England didn't necessarily deserve to get a result.
Cricket, more than any other sport, can use technology, and should do so.
Very late reply, I realise, but just wanted to clarify as I hopefully wasn't being contradictory!
I think all decisions that are in any doubt should be referred to technology. My point about Harper was that he referred something for a reason he was allowed to refer for (whether it carried), when it was actually something else he wanted to check (whether the batsman hit it), so this proves the need for technology in my mind, as umpires are inventing reasons to use technology and are trying to get round the regulations to use it.
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