ANOTHER UDRS BLUNDER

A lot of people believe that Ashoka de Silva is the least elite amongst the ICC's Elite Panel of umpires. How he is deemed to be competent enough to officiate in a tournament as prestigious as a World Cup remains a mystery to many. In today's Ireland v. West Indies game at Mohali, he gave a howler (despite having used DRS) so large that it would have made Billy Bowden look a genius!

At 41.3 overs, Ireland were 199 for 5, requiring another 77 runs to beat the West Indians off 51 balls. Gary Wilson, batting on 61 off 61 balls was on strike, accompanied by a newly-in Alex Cusack. Despite having lost a couple of quick wickets, Ireland were in with more than a decent shot at the victory target. West Indian captain Darren Sammy was bowling... and on his next ball, Ashoka de Silva virtually decided the game in favour of West Indies.

A back-of-a-length off-cutter struck Wilson on his front pad as he was late in getting his bat down to guide the ball towards third man. When the ball struck his pad, his bat was behind the pad and came down later to meet the ball as it rolled to the left of the point fielder. As Wilson set for a single, Sammy appealed for an LBW decision and saw Ashoka de Silva raise his finger. Wilson immediately called for a review. Now have a look at the sequence of images below:

One look at just the three images, and any person who knows a little bit about the UDRS and the laws of LBW will immediately say that the umpire should reverse his decision. However, Ashoka de Silva decided to go with his original decision because allegedly, he believed that the batsman had not offered a shot to that delivery. What rubbish!

How does a man who is batting on 61 with a strike rate of 100 play a non-shot when his team needs more than 8 runs an over to win the game! Forget the situation of the match. Just read what the Irish skipper William Porterfield had to say about this: "The word we are getting at the minute is the umpire went back upstairs to check if he hit the ball before the impact on the pad and if it was pad first, or bat first. Surely if you are asking if it was pad first or bat first, you know he is playing a shot. In my opinion they got it wrong."

Simple logic that puts the argument to rest! If the umpire wants to see three replays to determine whether it is pad first or bat first, then there should be no doubt that a shot was attempted. Forget the fact that it was clearly a shot being attempted as Wilson tried to run it down to the third man... just ask yourself when do you say that no shot has been attempted. In my opinion, where the bat makes no deliberate attempt to make contact with the ball and does not make contact with the ball, one can say that no shot was attempted.

With the images, over the video footage and by Porterfield's crystal clear logic, I think it is very easy to conclude that a shot was clearly attempted on that ball. Yet when the umpire decided to rule it out with the commentators claiming that it must have been because of a non-attempt at a shot, my mind wandered off in search of some other explanation. And this is what it came up with...

I believe that the moment Ashoka de Silva saw the yellow light saying "Wickets: On Field Call", he presumed that his call will stand. He didn't bother to use his brain and see that when there is a clear green light saying "Impact: Outside", it should be Not Out regardless of the original decision. I believe that he had trained his mind into thinking that every time a yellow light saying "On Field Call" is displayed, he will not be required to reverse his decision, irrespective of whether there are other red or green lights!

I purposely placed three images up there in this post. I'll explain why. In my view, if the ball is pitched outside the line of leg stump, the review should stop there and the path of the ball should not be shown further ahead by the broadcaster to make it absolutely clear that it is a Not Out call.

Where it pitches in line or outside off, but the impact is not within line, again the broadcaster should stop right there (like in the first image). Now here, if the umpire feels that the batsman has not offered a shot, then he should request the broadcaster to continue with the projection... or else, the decision is made. At least, this will ensure that the viewers will know for certain that the umpire was genuinely in doubt of a shot being offered rather than some other reason!

I have a feeling that had the broadcaster restricted his projection till the first image instead of going on till the second image, Gary Wilson may well have survived. I know I am questioning the aptitude of Ashoka de Silva and might even be a bit biased against him, but then I cannot help it for a man who has had all 4 DRS reviews against him (before this match) in this tournament overturned and then comes up with this shocker deserves no less, in my opinion!

And if you look at the third image, you might well say that the decision should have been "Not Out" even with the naked eye. That ball is barely clipping the outside of the off stump as per Hawk Eye! Even if it were striking in line, most umpires would have given that Not Out and called right for their decision. How he gave this to the bowler casts a doubt over his umpiring abilities!