Using technology to the full

It's interesting watching the use of technology in other sports and I praised the use of Hawkeye in tennis, allowing players to appeal decisions and get them overturned. Players have a maximum of 3 unsuccessful appeals in each set, unless it goes to tie break when they get an extra appeal. At 6 all in the 5th set yesterday in the Wimbledon men's final, both players started again with 3 appeals.

As anyone that reads Cricket Burble will know, I'm a big fan of doing whatever it takes to get decisions right - tennis have done their best by using large numbers of judges on the various lines and, previously, someone to call for lets. Even with these large numbers of judges, they haven't been able to get things right all of the time, and naturally so as they are only human. The appeals system using Hawkeye seemed to be a step in the right direction.

But I'd like them to take the use of Hawkeye further. Given the importance of the match yesterday, there were some rediculous cases where the player didn't challenge despite the fact that the call would have been overturned. That's not surprising - like the line judges, the players are only human. The commentators picked up on this straight away - long before the server set up to start the next point. Given that it's so quick to find out if the ball is out, why have the appeals system at all? The umpire should have a little screen, same as the commentators, where Hawkeye indicates to him if the ball is in or out. No more need for line judges....just one umpire.

I wonder if two umpires will always be required in cricket?