INDIA IN AUSTRALIA, 1ST TEST - HOW CAN UMPIRING GO OUT OF FOCUS?

I was far too young to follow India's tour of Australia in 1991-92. Once I started understanding and following the game of cricket, India has toured Australia in 1999-00, 2003-04, 2007-08 and the current one now in 2011-12... and each time, umpiring has been a subject of sharp focus!

If that is not enough, the scrutiny of umpiring decisions have started in the 1st Test on all but one of the above tours. Only in 2007-08 did the opening Test at MCG on the Boxing Day go through without an umpiring decision worthy of remembrance years later! Unhappy with how incident-free the 1st Test was from an umpiring perspective, the cricketing Gods put in all their efforts to ensure that the 2nd Test would not only compensate for the 1st one, but also supersede all other incident-involving Australia-India Tests of my living memory.

1999-00: The first Test was in Adelaide... and it will always be remembered for the infamous shoulder-before-wicket LBW decision by Daryl Harper against Sachin Tendulkar of Glenn McGrath's bowling. Even in that era, that particular decision gathered a lot of inches and minutes in print and television media respectively. I shudder to imagine what would have happened had such a decision been given in this era!

It was a marginal call, as the ball could have clipped the top of the stumps or gone over it. In normal circumstances, the benefit of the doubt goes to the batsman. Only when the batsman does not offer a shot does the benefit of the doubt go to the bowler. Was that a case of no shot offered? In my view, definitely not! When a batsman ducks under a bouncer that hits him on any part of his body and goes for runs, it is given as leg byes. When no shot is offered, and the ball is deflected of the pads of the batsman, no runs are given. This rule may be farcical, but as long as it exists, ducking cannot be deemed to be a case of no shot offered, and the benefit of doubt in that case should have gone to the batsman.

While I remember just this incident clearly from that tour, I do remember that there definitely was discontentment about umpiring during that tour. I have read that that particular tour accelerated ICC's plans of implementing the concept of two neutral umpires in Tests. This article from the Cricinfo archives points out that there were arguably three contentious decisions against Sachin Tendulkar alone in his 6 Test innings on that tour.

2003-04: The first Test was in Brisbane... and the central figure was once again Sachin Tendulkar. The bowler this time was Jason Gillespie and the umpire was Steve Bucknor. Again, the media coverage was immense and even Gillespie had admitted that his appeal had only been academic and that he wasn't actually expecting to get the decision in his favour.

While the ball pitched outside off and seamed in, even the naked eye could tell that the bounce was far too much in that ball to be able to hit the stumps. Truth be told, I think that this ball would have passed the stumps at a higher altitude than McGrath's bouncer four years previously that resulted in the shoulder-before-wicket dismissal. That same article to which I have provided the link above talks of the coverage that followed this Steve Bucknor decision.

2007-08: Like I said, the first Test at MCG was more-or-less incident-free, and the second Test at SCG overcompensated for that! There has been more than enough coverage of the Sydney Test of 2008 - both the racial abuse allegation as well as the collection of umpiring errors! Andrew Symonds was reprieved thrice (twice by Steve Bucknor and once incredibly by the third umpire Bruce Oxenford!) and Ricky Ponting was reprieved once and then given out when he shouldn't have been. Sourav Ganguly was ruled out caught by Michael Clarke by umpire Mark Benson in consultation with Ponting rather than the third umpire.

There were some more incidents (I remember Rahul Dravid too falling victim of a Steve Bucknor error), but the key one definitely was the first reprieve that Andrew Symonds received on Ishant Sharma's bowling. Steve Bucknor (once again!) failed to see/hear a very clear edge with its big woody noise and a clear deflection of the ball on its way to MS Dhoni behind the stumps. That decision was very clearly a result-impacting decision. Symonds was on 30 then, and Australia 193 for 6. Australia ended up with 463 with Symonds unbeaten on 162. Even though India had no business losing the Test on Day 5, there might have been a completely different result had Symonds been ruled out there and Australia slumped to 193 for 7.

2011-12: The first Test at Melbourne, Day 1... and both umpires in the limelight for one caught-behind decision each. Maraius Erasmus ruled Michael Hussey out for a golden duck off Zaheer Khan's bowling and soon thereafter, Ian Gould ruled the debutant Ed Cowan out for 68 off Ravichandran Ashwin's bowling.

While I wouldn't call either of those decisions a 'howler', the debate on it shall be no less than the other decisions of the past... because we live in the era that has tasted the implementation of DRS. Where I stand on the issue of DRS is absolutely unrelated to what this post is about, and so I'll refrain from getting into that. But it must be said here that there is a difference between a marginal call and a howler, and DRS is starting to obliterate that line. Had it not been for the debate on DRS, the Hussey and Cowan dismissals might have been talked about just for a few hours, and then archived somewhere in history. But now, we'll have gigabytes of data to tell the future generation different versions of what actually transpired there!

THE DRAVID DISMISSAL DEBATE

After my previous post on The Dravid Selection Debate, this one is now on the 2nd innings dismissal of Rahul Dravid during the 4th Test at the Oval. It looks like Dravid debates are the fashion for this season! Already, this dismissal has been discussed and dissected all over Twitter and other cricket forums on the internet. Here are my thoughts for what they are worth!

First, let me state very clearly that I did not see the dismissal live and did not even manage to catch a replay till well after the end of day's play. When I did see the replay, I already knew that Dravid had admitted to have edged it. So whether I think there was an edge or not does not matter, because my eyes were always going to be prejudiced after that admission by Dravid. But here's what I do know:

1. Most English commentators and tweeters were of the opinion that they saw a slight deflection from a certain angle, and so Steve Davis was justified in ruling Dravid out.

2. Most Indian commentators and tweeters were of the opinion that they saw no conclusive evidence for Steve Davis to overrule the on-field decision. Since DRS over-ruling works on the basis of conclusive evidence, Davis was not justified.

3. Amongst the neutral, I don't recall many opinions. But I do recall Mike Haysman tweeting that he didn't think there was any conclusive evidence to rule Dravid out.

I think that based on these statements, we can assume that it was a marginal call either way.

Now what I am going to state here has been stated so often already that it's sounding more and more like a cliché, but it has to be mentioned nevertheless. So here it goes again - the DRS was meant to eliminate howlers, and not rule on marginal calls. Where marginal calls are involved, the ground umpire's decision should be taken as the final one. Only when there is overwhelming evidence against the ground umpire's ruling should that decision be overturned.

But while I state all this, lets not forget that the primary aim of the judiciary (and this includes the umpires as well as the technology that has been provided for their aid) is to come to the right decision. And in Dravid's case, the right decision was indeed reached, even though in a wrong way! I remember once an umpire (I think it was Simon Taufel, but I'm not sure!) stated that they would not want their walkie-talkie conversations ever recorded, because often they reach the right decisions in very wrong ways!

So what to make of this debate? Now that we have the benefit of hindsight, in my opinion and strictly in my opinion, I think that the right decision was made and Steve Davis was good to have spotted that faint edge and deviation. In his mind, he was must have been reasonably sure that the edge had been taken, however thin it may have been, and he relayed that decision back to the ground umpire. That's it!

But that's not the end of the story! What I have trouble comprehending is that why are umpires inconsistent in this matter. Some like Billy Bowden prefer to go exactly by the rule book and rule Ian Bell not out in the World Cup match against India even though the evidence overwhelmingly suggested that he should have been Yuvraj Singh's victim! And some like Steve Davis decide to use their initiative and overrule the foundation on which the DRS is based - i.e. the foundation of overwhelming evidence!

I know that the "Ian Bell - Yuvraj Singh - Billy Bowden" example is not quite an exact parallel to this one. And to be honest, I couldn't find any exact parallel. So I will give you the best I could find...

The following video shows the wickets and close calls during the Canada vs. Kenya match in the World Cup 2011. Watch this video from 5:02 onwards - the batsman is Kenyan Steve Tikolo, and the bowler is Canadian Rizwan Cheema.



Now, from what I see here, I think that the edge was clearer here on Steve Tikolo's bat than it was in case of Rahul Dravid at The Oval. I know that it may be a futile exercise to compare, since the situations were different and the umpires involved were different (Bruce Oxenford was the third umpire in the Steve Tikolo case). But the point I'm trying to make is that Oxenford saw it was a marginal call, and though some angles suggested an inside edge, he decided to rule it in favour of the on-field umpire's call. He saw no overwhelming evidence to overrule!

Here, I am not trying to blame Steve Davis in any way. I have already stated that with the benefit of hindsight, we can all agree that the correct decision was made. But the blame lies entirely with ICC's pathetic implementation of the DRS, and its use for marginal calls.

I understand that Bruce Oxenford may not have been as convinced as Steve Davis was to overrule the on-field call, but if I am allowed to judge the third umpires here, I am sure that neither Oxenford nor Davis could have been 100% sure about the edges. Even if Steve Davis was reasonably certain about the edge, I am prepared to bet that he could not have been a 100% confident about his call... simply because it indeed was a very marginal call and the replays could not have been deemed to be 100% conclusive. The varied opinions all over Twitter suggest nothing else.

So what does the ICC have to state? Are the on-field calls to be over-ruled where the third umpires are just reasonably sure about the evidence on offer? Or are they to be over-ruled only when the third umpires are a 100% certain about the error in the on-field decision? Till the ICC does not answer this question clearly and decisively, we will continue to have such vagaries in decision-making even in the future. How this decision might affect the result of this match will be known only tomorrow (and even then, just speculatively), but what it did was that it ended a marathon effort by India's best batsman on this tour on a very sour note!

Well played, Rahul Dravid! Much respect!

SACHIN TENDULKAR'S AJMAL MOMENTS

When Ian Gould had to reverse his LBW decision of Sachin Tendulkar off Saeed Ajmal's bowling, he looked quite miffed. I don't blame him - it was the first time in this entire World Cup that an Ian Gould decision had been reviewed and reversed. This now leaves only two umpires with clean records - one controversial and the other absolutely spotless. The controversial clean record is held by Billy Bowden (read Ian Bell) and the spotlessly clean record is held by Aleem Dar - that man is as good as the latest piece of technology available!

Tendulkar was very very lucky to survive that LBW call. Have a look:

Had even a little bit of that ball made contact with the leg stump, Tendulkar would have been out for 23. That distance between the ball and the leg stump was just about 1 centimeter (my approximation technique tells me it was about 11.2 millimeters). Phew!

Later on, it became more and more clear that Sachin Tendulkar survived because he was destined to, even if he tried his best to change the course of destiny! He admitted later that such a thing (5 chances) had never happened to him ever before. And trust me, it is unlikely to happen ever again!

The ball immediately after this LBW appeal was masterfully bowled by Ajmal. While the earlier ball was an off spinner that Tendulkar had played across the line to and missed, he now bowled a doosra that Tendulkar failed to pick and was almost stumped (again saved by similar margins)! But I have a problem with Ajmal's doosra.

For long I have felt that most doosras are clear cases of 'chucking', and in Ajmal's case, it is very very apparent. I do not know how the ICC calculates the 15 degree margin, and which point is taken as the axis, but here's what I saw and made of it.

The first image below is the delivery stride of Ajmal on that stumping appeal (doosra). The second image is the same as the first one, worked on a little by me.

Assuming ICC uses a similar methodology to measure the 15 degrees elbow bending rule (with obviously a lot more sophisticated and accurate technology), I am sure they will find that this one clearly exceeds the limit. I don't know what is the exact measure of the angle made by the red lines in the second image, but I will tell you this - if that angle is less than 15 degrees, then I am ready to jump off a 10-floor building!

I hope ICC cracks down on this increasing violation of the 15 degree bending rule. Johan Botha's doosra had been banned for some time, and I am sure that if ICC look into Ajmal's action closely, then they might well have a case to ban not only his doosra, but also his pehla!

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!

UDRS 2.5 M RULE - CRITICISM AND SUGGESTION

First and foremost, I am sorry but this is a pretty long and detailed post... and will also be a little repetitive to the readers who have read my previous post on UDRS. But this one is more comprehensive and includes a suggestion for improvement at the end, on which I'd like you all to comment.

In one of my earlier posts on UDRS which I put up after the end of the India v. England World Cup match due to the Ian Bell reprieve (yes, I call it a ‘reprieve’), I received a few comments where the basic question that everyone was trying to seek an answer to was why Billy Bowden could have ruled it not out. 

This UDRS debate has raged on and gotten bigger now with Dhoni calling it as “an adulteration” of technology with human judgement, and then ICC coming out with an explanation defending that decision, followed by Haroon Lorgat (ICC Chief Executive) and Dave Richardson (ICC General Manager) too lending support to that decision and the rule of 2.5 metres (distance between the stumps and the point of impact) and 40 centimetres (distance between the point of impact and the point where the ball pitches). 

I have already explained in the earlier post about how the 2.5 metre rule makes the UDRS partly-redundant. I will re-explain that point here again and also suggest and alternative that, in my view, be a much better solution in respect of the ball-tracking technology (Hawk Eye and Virtual Eye). 

Wordings of the actual rule {Appendix 5, Clause 3.3, Sub-clause i (iii)}

"If a ‘not out’ decision is being reviewed, in order to report that the ball is hitting the stumps, the evidence provided by technology should show that the centre of the ball would have hit the stumps within an area demarcated by a line drawn below the lower edge of the bails and down the middle of the outer stumps.

However, in instances where the evidence shows that the ball would have hit the stumps within the demarcated area as set out above but that the point of impact is greater than 250 cm from the stumps, the third umpire shall notify the on-field umpire of:
a) The distance from the wickets to the point of impact with the batsman
b) The approximate distance from point of pitching to point of impact
c) Where the ball is predicted to hit the stumps.

In such a case, the on-field umpire shall have regard to the normal cricketing principles concerning the level of certainty in making his decision as to whether to change his decision."

How UDRS becomes partly-redundant 

With this 2.5 metre rule, the UDRS becomes completely redundant for a fielding captain when a batsman lunges forward more than 2.5 metres. Where there is an appeal for LBW denied with the batsman so far ahead, the fielding captain shall be averse to go in for a review no matter how plumb it looks. This is because the umpire can always go with his original decision even if the review shows all three criteria (pitching, impact and hitting the stumps) as red, simply because the batsman was lunging a long way forward and the ground umpire can cite that as a reason to not reverse his decision. 

Had the impact been 2.49 metres in front of the stumps, the umpire would HAVE HAD TO reverse his decision and rule the batsman out. But because the batsman was 2.51 metres ahead, the umpire gets AN OPTION to stick by his original decision. I am sure 2 centimetres wouldn’t have made that big a difference in the decision. 

If you like it, then lets have a hypothetical situation. Imagine Lasith Malinga or Mitchell Johnson bowling to Kevin Pietersen or Matthew Hayden (I know he’s retired, but we can always imagine!). These two bowlers, because of their slinging actions, release the ball from right on top of the stumps (when they are bowling over the wickets, of course!) and these two batsmen like to stand outside their crease even to fast bowlers and usually get a HUGE stride forward as a result of their lengthy frames. 

If Malinga / Johnson were to bowl straight and full and strike the front pad of Hayden / Pietersen and the umpire were to rule not out to an LBW appeal, the fielding captain should not even contemplate a review if the batsman in question was struck on the front foot. Even if the ball pitches on off stump, impact is on middle stump and the ball-tracking technology suggests that the ball would have gone to hit between middle and leg stump half-way up, the umpire would still have AN OPTION TO RULE NOT OUT… simply because of that big stride. What’s the use of those Malinga yorkers then! 

Why this rule 

In Haroon Lorgat’s own words, “The rules were designed with serious thoughts in mind. That particular one [pertaining to the 2.5m rule] was to accommodate the scepticism that some players have got with predictive technology.” 

Another quote from that Cricinfo article – 

"What we have been trying to avoid because of the DRS is the absolute shocker. Umpires will acknowledge this and they are happy with the system. They can go to sleep at night knowing that had they made that one mistake, it can be rectified. That would not have happened without DRS."

The rule about the distance between impact and the stumps had been put in place precisely because experts had said that the accuracy of the ball tracker - in this case Hawk Eye - begins to falter from that point. "So we said if it's a longer time frame than 2.5m, and people say the prediction cannot be relied upon, then we are allowing the umpire (to take his decision)."

Dhoni had asked why the mark had not been stipulated at 2.4, or 2.6m, and Lorgat said that while, "You can call a mark wherever you want to, where Dhoni was saying 2.4 and 2.6, whatever, call it whatever you wish... it was the experts' views that had been taking into account by the ICC. From the experts' point of view, they said beyond 2.5m, beyond a longer stretch than that, you rely on the umpire." 

The absurdity 

In Lorgat’s own words, where the prediction becomes even tougher for the technology (after 2.5 metres), they are leaving it to the human judgement. Usually, technology is used in any field to assist people when it becomes difficult to use human element. Here, human element is being used when it is becoming difficult for technology! 

My suggestion to make it more acceptable 

I admit that over a longer distance, the predictive element of the technology will become less accurate. However, to set a rigid marker like 2.5 metres is incorrect… as I have shown in an example above where 2 centimetres between 2.49 metres and 2.51 metres can impact the result of a match! 

Instead, what I would like to see is that the companies who manufacture this technology (Hawk Eye and Virtual Eye) should include this element of uncertainty and inaccuracy in their predictive path. In other words, when the tracker is being shown on the television replay, the ball path predicted after the impact should continuously grow larger in radius as it progresses towards the stumps. This will enable the umpires to judge a lot more accurately about the probability that the ball would have hit the stumps. 

The circular area depicted in red around the ball is an addition made by me in an attempt to portray how the area of inaccuracy / uncertainty can be depicted over television replays.

I have taken this screenshot above from Cricinfo’s Hawk Eye application. This is the ball path of Graeme Smith’s LBW dismissal to Zaheer Khan during the first innings of the Third Test recently in January 2011. As I have illustrated above, let the technology show up its area of inaccuracy / uncertainty (whichever term they may want to use), so that we know with absolute certainty that the ball could not have hit outside this area. I have highlighted that with a red circle around the ball.

Here, we know now that larger the distance between the point of impact and the stumps, the bigger will be its area of inaccuracy / uncertainty. Now the umpire will get all the information required that is required for as-accurate-as-possible decision-making, i.e. (a) he shall know what is the most probable path the ball will take, (b) if not that path, then where and how much can the ball deviate, and (c) most importantly, how much percentage of that area is making impact with the stumps.

Where more than 50% of the area of inaccuracy / uncertainty is making impact with the stumps, the batsman should be ruled out (obviously assuming that other conditions are satisfied as well). I am sure that Yuvraj Singh would have earned the dismissal of Ian Bell if we were to follow this methodology of predicting ball paths.

For one, Yuvraj was bowling around the wicket and since Hawk Eye showed that impact was on the off stump, it is obvious that the ball couldn’t have missed off stump as Yuvraj hardly turned that ball… it just straightened very little. It definitely wouldn’t have climbed over the stumps on any sub-continental track. And I am sure it wouldn’t have missed leg stump as well, because the Hawk Eye showed impact between middle and off stumps… so even if the area of inaccuracy / uncertainty were to be very large, there would be no way that it would exceed the leg stump by a margin so huge that even 50% of it would not be deemed within the stumps.

Conclusion

So firstly, ICC should reconsider their rules and usages of technology… because till they don’t get it as right as possible, they cannot shirk away from criticism. Secondly, they should admit that the decision from Billy Bowden was wrong simply because he failed to apply common sense in that decision, which I have applied in the previous paragraph. And thirdly, they should set standards on this type of decision-making… for there have been cases in the past where similar Not Out decisions by the on-field umpires were overturned on review despite the impact being more than 2.5 metres out!

Case 1: Here is the video link of Tim Paine (Aus) being dismissed LBW by Liam Plunkett (Eng) at Perth (out of all places) on 6th February 2011 (7th match of the recently concluded ODI series), as a result of umpire Paul Reiffel overturning his original Not Out decision on review by the English captain, Andrew Strauss (watch the portion between 4:15 and 7:20)!

Case 2: Here is the video link of Shane Watson (Aus) being dismissed LBW by Graeme Cremer (Zim) at Ahmedabad on 21st February 2011 (4th match of the ICC World Cup 2011), as a result of umpire Richard Kettleborough overturning his original Not Out decision on review by the Zimbabwean captain, Elton Chigumbura (watch the portion between 3:03 and 3:48)!

UDRS: UMPIRE'S DAFTNESS RECORDING SYSTEM

The title has made it obvious what this is about. I was confused for a moment when Billy Bowden signaled Ian Bell not out on that ball off Yuvraj Singh. I thought that Billy must have made a mistake and will raise his crooked finger soon... because Bell was already walking off. Then he called Bell back and the Indian fielders surrounded him to ask whether it was something they didn't know about or whether his head was not in his place! It turned out to be the latter...

I attribute that one moment as the reason why England were able to tie the game that was India's for the taking. Andrew Strauss batted like a dream... but a chase such as that is possible only with partnerships. And Ian Bell was his partner in what could have been a match-clinching partnership, which shouldn't have been so long but for Billy Bowden.

The 2.5 metre rule of UDRS is as ridiculous as any rule I have come across. And I don't get it why the law makers did not see how absurd it is when they framed it. Do they not run simulations to check whether the rule has any bad effects? In this case, the 2.5 metre rule only has the wrong effects. Here's why...

If that rule is implemented the way it was implemented today, there is no point in asking for reviewing a leg before decision by a fielding captain when someone like Kevin Pietersen is batting. Because even if the ball pitches on middle (RED), impact is on middle (RED) and goes on to strike the middle of middle (RED), the decision will always have to be not out because the umpire's original decision was not out as Pietersen plays his game a long way in front of the stumps.

In short, the moment a batsman comes more than 2.5 metres from the stumps, the UDRS becomes redundant... because no matter how plumb it looks, the ground umpire's original Not Out call will stand. In a way, insertion of this clause of 2.5 metre in the UDRS rule seems to have changed the law of Leg Before Wicket itself. UDRS was introduced to assist with LBW decisions, not to change the law of LBW!

From what I understand, this 2.5 metre guideline has been inserted because the makers of this technology believe that if the ball has to travel more than 2.5 metres after impact, its ball projection accuracy reduces. Fair point. They have claimed that their technology is not perfect and I have no problem with that!

But they say that the accuracy reduces... it does not say that accuracy goes down to zero. In such a case as was played out today, where the ball was striking half way up between the middle and off... even if we consider that the path projection may not have been completely accurate, it seemed obvious that the ball would still have hit the stumps.

It might have been on the off stump or on the middle stump... it might have been a little higher or a little lower... but there was no way on earth that that particular ball would have done anything but hit the stumps had Ian Bell not existed. In such scenarios, it pains me to see that the umpires (both ground umpire and the third umpire) do not make use of their common sense and grey cells to make the decision. This one was a very daft piece of decision-making on display today.

The purpose of UDRS is to implement a technology that assists the umpires... and not replaces them! If the 2.5 metre guideline is going to be a decisive rule, then as I said earlier, for a batsman like Kevin Pietersen, UDRS becomes redundant. However, had the 2.5 metre guideline been used as a suggestive rule, then not only would Ian Bell have been dismissed and the result of this match possibly different, but the UDRS would also have has a lot more credibility. It would certainly need some now!

A NEW IDEA FOR UDRS

There has been a bit of debate going on in the blogosphere about the way UDRS is being implemented. Kartikeya makes a few very valid points here about the flawed execution of this Decision Improvement mechanism.

So, thinking about UDRS, I came up with an idea... it is not the perfect solution, but just an idea that can be looked at. Kartikeya has summarised UDRS as: "Umpires can make mistakes, and since this is so, we will allow players to make at most two mistakes in an effort to correct the umpires' mistakes."

The Michael Hussey plumb-LBW-that-was-given-not-out also pointed out the fact that howlers have not been eradicated as of yet. I had mentioned once a few months back that howlers from a match where UDRS is implemented leaves a lot more bitter taste in the mouth than howlers from match where the umpiring is left to human beings. The on-field umpires can walk up to the players at the end of the day and apologise... but Hot Spot and Snicko cannot do so.

Some bloggers suggest that it should be left to the umpires as to when to use the help of technology in decision-making and that players should not be allowed to challenge the umpires and in effect, undermine their authority. But then just 2 unsuccessful reviews in one innings is a bit of a farce. In tennis, each player is allowed 3 unsuccessful challenges in a set that barely lasts over an hour at max. If they enter a tie-breaker, they receive an additional challenge each. If the tie-breaker reaches 6-6 or 12-12 or such further scores, they again receive an additional challenge each. Where there is no tie-breaker (in the deciding sets), the challenges are reset to 3 apiece every time the set score reads 6 games each or 12 games each or such further scores. So to allow only 2 unsuccessful reviews in an innings that usually lasts for more than a day (about 10 hours usually on flat pitches) is a pity.

So I thought of a way to counter this problem. Here's my line of thought... allow unlimited reviews. But there is obviously a catch. Every time a fielding team makes an unsuccessful review, 5 penalty runs shall be awarded as extras to the batting side.

This may become unfair sometimes when the calls are very close and the final decision is the original umpire's decision... for example, when the ball is just clipping the stumps or has just pitched in line of the leg stump. In such cases, where the reviews can be justified as genuine, the penalty can be waived... but where the technology shows that it was a clear not out decision, the call for review should be considered a time-wasting strategy that shall be punished with 5 penalty runs to the opposition.

But what about when a batting team gets a review wrong? I first thought of deducting 5 runs as penalty. But we cannot have a situation where a team is minus 5 for 1. That wouldn't do! So I thought of this... when a batting team gets it wrong, do nothing. I will explain why.

When a batting team makes an unsuccessful review, it means that they have just lost a wicket. Why punish them further in such a scenario? There can at max be only 10 unsuccessful reviews by a batting team in every innings... and it is a very unlikely situation where there will actually be 10. Not all the wickets to fall are going to be LBWs or close caught-behinds. There will be some other obvious dismissals. So even if we say that a batting team makes 5 unsuccessful reviews in an innings, I really wouldn't mind the interruptions if the flip side is that the howlers in every game are being reduced to zero.

In this idea, it is still left upto the players to decide when to use UDRS, so the method of questioning the umpire's decision continues, but it at least ensures that a Michael Hussey-like situation is avoided. There may be some loopholes in my idea (there are bound to be as I am half asleep as I think of it and type it)... but I am sure you guys can come up with your own ideas to fill the cracks of replace my idea completely.


P.S.: One of the reason why I continued with the methodology of players calling for the Review (and not umpires using it on their own initiative) is that we all saw what happened in the 2005 ICC Super Series in Australia when the umpires used technology for decision-making. In my opinion, it was a flawed system... and that's why I prefer this system where the players can decide when to use the technology.

UDRS: A HALF-COOKED MEAL

Sachin Tendulkar: c. P Jayawardene b. L Malinga 41 (72)

This is what happened in the very first over of the day when Sachin chased a wide one from Malinga and nicking it to the jubilant young keeper as the Lankans gathered to celebrate Malinga's 100th Test wicket... a special one as it was of the Indian maestro!

But something perplexed me in the replays that followed. The 'Snicko' did not detect a nick as the ball went past the bat. But everyone could detect the nick in Sachin's expression immediately after the shot and the confidence of the Lankan appeal. Usually when SRT feels that he has been given a harsh decision (it has happened many a time so we know that reaction well!), he just shakes his head before making the walk. Today there wasn't any shake of the head... there was just a grimace, showing the disappointment of having nicked a ball that did not deserve the wicket of the highest run-scorer in Test cricket!

So we know one thing for sure: SRT did nick that ball! Then the question to be asked is: WHY DID THAT NICK DID NOT REGISTER ON THE SNICKO? The stump microphones are turned up to their full volume reception when a bowler is delivering the ball. If SRT's nick was so obvious to the keeper, bowler and the umpire, then surely it must have created a sound. The fact that it went undetected forces me to conclude that Snicko is an imprecise technology.

Given that the Hawk Eye team admits that they have a certain small percentage of imperfection in their predictive techniques, we now have two pieces of technology that can be easily qualified as 'imperfect'. And guess what, ICC plans to form its Umpires' Decision Review System in the base of these two technologies in its showpiece event next year... the World Cup!

The news is out that the Hot Spot cameras are too expensive to purchase... what rubbish! This is Cricket World Cup... one that happens once in 4 years... and one that is happening in India after 15 year! If this cannot generate money, then I don't know what can! But in any case, moving on... with the Hot Spot technology unavailable atleast till the Quarter Finals stage of the event, the UDRS will be restricted to Super Slow-Motion Replay Cameras, Snickometers and Hawk Eye Technology. The first one usually proves nothing conclusively... and the other two have already demonstrated their imperfections!

In such a case, I would rather suggest the ICC to not use the UDRS at all till the Quarter Final stage of the event. A bad decision from the UDRS leaves a much worse taste than a bad decision coming from a human umpire. Umpires can later walk up to players and apologies... UDRS cannot do that! A half-cooked meal is bound to cause a nasty stomach ache!