Line & Length
R Mohan
Technology and laws pose trouble for the bowlers
December 13, 2007
In one of his early moments of clarity on the game Ian Botham said that the only umpires he respected were the retired ones.
Botham was a player then and he carried the mindset of the bowler, awesome and powerful batsman though he was and as natural a cricketer you were ever likely to come across.
Sitting as a pundit in his exalted knighted status in the commentary box these days, Botham still carries that sympathy for the bowlers.
He has been through the grind and knows what it is all about. It must tear his heart to see how the true servants of the game are treated these days.
They bowl either on belters like the ones laid out in the last couple of weeks in Kolkata and Bangalore or on the low and slow ones that simply get lower and slower in Kandy and Colombo.
To top up their misery they refer their appeals to the umpires who simply refuse everything unless they are more than 100 per cent sure that the batsman is indeed out. Among the so called Elite set, it has become quite the fashion to simply refuse all lbw appeals lest they make the one error that may be run over and over again in a million replays on the small screen on 'live' programming or in endless repeats.
Such a seeming policy decision does not, however, stop them from some erratic departures from the straight and narrow path, much like our famous autorickshaws.
If the Hawkeye technology is to be believed - and there is a scientific reason to do so - then every Pakistani batsman was out lbw at least once before he left, generally dismissed in some other fashion. And a couple of the Indian batsmen who were involved in a gigantic retrieval act were also probably as fortunate to benefit from such extreme reluctance on the part of umpires to consider the bowler's point of view.
If such abstemious ways marked the work of the officials in Bangalore, their counterparts in the other Test being played nearby tended to be more expansive.
When Sidebottom hit one rather than snicked the ball into his pads, he was given marching orders in Kandy and the decision may actually have changed the final result since so little time was left on the clock and in the late evening sunshine.
The officials at the SSC in Colombo became quite the laughing stock in the different ways in which they handled two very similar incidents.
While they simply refused to heed common sense in asking for a third umpire referral in the first instance when adjudging Pietersen caught, they ordered a referral in the second.
Under intense pressure in the aftermath of unfavourable comments from the England captain and from the media, the officials ordered the referral in the case of the somewhat unusually named Sidebottom. They were humiliated when their colleague in the box used common sense rather than the letter in the law book to reprieve the batsman.
The point is simple - when the technology is there, why not use it in order to give the players some relief from uncertainties of human fallibility in decision making. Granted, the lbw situation will never be subject to third umpire adjudication, though even in that area the wicket-to-wicket superimposed imprint can be most useful in at least avoiding the terrible decision like the one handed down to Cook.
The issue has as much to do with technology as it has to do with attitude. It is clear umpires are doing bowlers a disservice in general by refusing everything on the grounds that doubts can be engendered or imagined by every situation involving the moving ball.
To err on the side of caution is obviously paying dividends in the strange statistics that ICC goes by, according to which umpires are right on more than 95 per cent of the occasions.
The unforgiving nature of the pitches adds to the bowlers' travails of having to operate in the heat and dust of the sub-continent.
While they should not be handed decisions just because they work hard, it's time umpires thought through every appeal instead of simply refusing it on first sight as they often tend to do. Such reflection, even for a moment or two, might even help them avoid such crass decisions as the one that ignored the big inside edge.
Human error is still easily forgiven though there is less reason to do so because technology has improved so much.
The hackneyed view of the umpires' authority being eroded by referrals is simply an escape route for the establishment.
There cannot be too many bowlers among those who sit in judgment on the laws and their interpretation by umpires. I am sure Sir Ian will agree.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
Botham was a player then and he carried the mindset of the bowler, awesome and powerful batsman though he was and as natural a cricketer you were ever likely to come across.
Sitting as a pundit in his exalted knighted status in the commentary box these days, Botham still carries that sympathy for the bowlers.
He has been through the grind and knows what it is all about. It must tear his heart to see how the true servants of the game are treated these days.
They bowl either on belters like the ones laid out in the last couple of weeks in Kolkata and Bangalore or on the low and slow ones that simply get lower and slower in Kandy and Colombo.
To top up their misery they refer their appeals to the umpires who simply refuse everything unless they are more than 100 per cent sure that the batsman is indeed out. Among the so called Elite set, it has become quite the fashion to simply refuse all lbw appeals lest they make the one error that may be run over and over again in a million replays on the small screen on 'live' programming or in endless repeats.
Such a seeming policy decision does not, however, stop them from some erratic departures from the straight and narrow path, much like our famous autorickshaws.
If the Hawkeye technology is to be believed - and there is a scientific reason to do so - then every Pakistani batsman was out lbw at least once before he left, generally dismissed in some other fashion. And a couple of the Indian batsmen who were involved in a gigantic retrieval act were also probably as fortunate to benefit from such extreme reluctance on the part of umpires to consider the bowler's point of view.
If such abstemious ways marked the work of the officials in Bangalore, their counterparts in the other Test being played nearby tended to be more expansive.
When Sidebottom hit one rather than snicked the ball into his pads, he was given marching orders in Kandy and the decision may actually have changed the final result since so little time was left on the clock and in the late evening sunshine.
The officials at the SSC in Colombo became quite the laughing stock in the different ways in which they handled two very similar incidents.
While they simply refused to heed common sense in asking for a third umpire referral in the first instance when adjudging Pietersen caught, they ordered a referral in the second.
Under intense pressure in the aftermath of unfavourable comments from the England captain and from the media, the officials ordered the referral in the case of the somewhat unusually named Sidebottom. They were humiliated when their colleague in the box used common sense rather than the letter in the law book to reprieve the batsman.
The point is simple - when the technology is there, why not use it in order to give the players some relief from uncertainties of human fallibility in decision making. Granted, the lbw situation will never be subject to third umpire adjudication, though even in that area the wicket-to-wicket superimposed imprint can be most useful in at least avoiding the terrible decision like the one handed down to Cook.
The issue has as much to do with technology as it has to do with attitude. It is clear umpires are doing bowlers a disservice in general by refusing everything on the grounds that doubts can be engendered or imagined by every situation involving the moving ball.
To err on the side of caution is obviously paying dividends in the strange statistics that ICC goes by, according to which umpires are right on more than 95 per cent of the occasions.
The unforgiving nature of the pitches adds to the bowlers' travails of having to operate in the heat and dust of the sub-continent.
While they should not be handed decisions just because they work hard, it's time umpires thought through every appeal instead of simply refusing it on first sight as they often tend to do. Such reflection, even for a moment or two, might even help them avoid such crass decisions as the one that ignored the big inside edge.
Human error is still easily forgiven though there is less reason to do so because technology has improved so much.
The hackneyed view of the umpires' authority being eroded by referrals is simply an escape route for the establishment.
There cannot be too many bowlers among those who sit in judgment on the laws and their interpretation by umpires. I am sure Sir Ian will agree.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
