Use of technology by umpires

It's great to see an England win in The Ashes however it comes, but it's always a little disappointing to find that some of the decisions against Australia's batsmen weren't out. Ponting's in the first innings was less regrettable as he may well have been LBW anyway, but Katich's in the 2nd innings from the no ball (he must have recurring nightmares about umpiring in this country after a couple of shockers in 2005!) and Hussey's where he hit the ground as Swann's ball turned sharply to slip were just plain wrong.

Of course the British press don't like to make too much of wrong decisions when they go England's way. And to be fair the Aussies haven't stirred it up at all, refusing to get drawn into discussion on the matter. But the press outside of England don't need to be so mild mannered and they are all clear that the decisions were poor, to say the least.

Given that background, interesting to hear that Rudi Koertzen wants to use every bit of technology going as he's keen to get every decision right and he knows that won't be the case without technology - how refreshing to hear from an umpire! The key thing is that when technology is used later in the year, it's used properly - not the half-arsed attempt so far where umpires don't have access to ALL the technology.

You may have noticed I didn't reference Phil Hughes' in the wrong decisions above. That's because it was probably out - if you slow down those low catches they all look like they haven't carried because the grass is longer than the diameter of a human finger. It's for that reason that the "batsman gets the benefit of the doubt" law needs to be exactly the opposite for low catches - only if the video shows beyond doubt that the ball hit the ground should it be given not out. That means that Hashim Amla was out last English summer to the diving Michael Vaughan (a "catch" that Vaughan might reflect cost him his job as it wasn't given), Bopara was out caught by Hauritz and Hughes was caught by Strauss. (And it means that de Villiers who claimed a catch that bounced some way short of him last year should have received some kind of ban given that video replays showed it was nowhere near a catch.)

Somehow I doubt things will be quite that simple....