By Spiro Zavos
December 13th 2008 @ 3:42am
Related coverage
Hawke-eye LBWs should be banned
Daniel Flynn, the gritty New Zealand left-hander, had batted his way with dedication and the occasional flourish to 95 in the first Test of the series against the West Indies when he pushed forward and was struck on the pads from a slowish delivery from Chris Gayle.
Umpire Amiesh Saheba turned the LBW appeal down.
Gayle, using the experimental rule allowing three reviews a day for each team, asked for the decision to be reviewed.
The television umpire, Rudi Koetrzen, ran through the Hawke-eye tapes and recommended that the appeal be upheld.
According to the Hawke-eye re-enactment, the ball hit Flynn in front of his stumps, it would not have bounced over the stumps, and it was going on to hit the middle stump.
In my view, this was a bad decision and throws into doubt the review experiment, if the LBW component of it is going to be included in the package.
The commentators expressed a different view, however.
Simon Doull, a Test bowler in his day, argued that finally bowlers were being given a chance in an era when increasingly, with shorter boundaries and new versions of the game like Twenty/20 cricket, the batsmen were being pampered.
He qualified this with the remarkable statement that the original not-out LBW decision was correct and that ‘nine out of ten’ umpires would have given Flynn not out.
This statement, which I believe is probably right, highlights the difficulty of using Hawke-eye to confirm LBW decisions.
At the time it seemed to be that although Flynn was hit in front of his stumps and the ball kept low, it was seemingly going to miss the leg stump as it was an arm ball by the right-handed Gayle.
Umpire Saheba clearly was of the same opinion, which is why he gave his not-out decision.
Why should the umpire’s decision in a matter of interpretation rather than fact be over-ruled by a technological device? Hawke-eye on LBWs does not establish the ‘fact’ that the ball is going to hit the stumps.
It can’t do this because in the case of LBWs, the ball doesn’t hit the stumps.
LBWs, whether adjudged by umpires or by Hawke-eye, involve presumptions and intepretations. There is no reason to presume that Hawke-eye in this area of presumption is more accurate than an umpire standing close to the action.
The review system, in my opinion, is worthwhile IF it is kept to matters of fact, like run-outs, catches, inside snicks on to pads in LBW appeals, snicks on to pads for close catches, whether a ball reached the boundary, and so on.
Using Hawke-eye for LBWs that have been turned down because of a judgement call that the ball would have hit the wicket when the umpire says that it would not have creates a double jeopardy situation for batsmen.
On judgment calls, where matters of fact are not involved, the cricket authorities should leave the matter to the field umpires and the ‘glorious uncertainty’ of the game.
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Benjamin Conkey said | December 13th 2008 @ 1:03pm | Report comment
Spiro, according to the new rules for Umpire Reviews the third umpire is only allowed to (or suppose to) use Hawk-eye for ball tracking and not predicting the ball’s future path. This is because the ICC realised it was not 100% accurate.
It’s easy to say LBWs should not be included in the review system, but what happens if a batsman gets a massive inside edge and is given out? I think this is one of the reasons why LBWs have been included.
I agree with you that many LBWs are 50-50..in this situation the batsman should get the benefit. We also have to remember that the rules state that no matter what the third umpire says the on-field umpire must make the final call.
The on-field umpire is suppose to hear the evidence from the third umpire and then make judgement, which should be any doubt going in the batsman’s favour.
Benjamin Conkey said | December 13th 2008 @ 1:17pm | Report comment
Just realised you did mention the inside edge LBW, but this would mean that the only person who could challenge would be the batsman. A bowler needs to be able to challenge the gross injustice of having a plumb LBW turned down. I didn’t see the dismissal you talked about, but it doesn’t surprise me that Rudi Koertzen was the third umpire. He was the main reason why the ICC didn’t stick with the Umpire’s own review system. If you remember the six-day supertest bewtween Australia and the ICC World XI, Koertzen went to the third umpire for almost every LBW appeal.
aLi said | December 13th 2008 @ 1:28pm | Report comment
Spiro, I must say that I disagree with your call to cancel the LBW from the review system, my reasons are similar to the ones highlighted by Benjamin and also I agree with Simon Doulls comments. You must agree, with dead tracks shorter boundaries the competition betwen bat and ball has diminished.
Ps – how good is Ryder [are he and R Taylor of maori descent? if so, it will be great for the promotion of cricket in that community, fantastic for cricket. If not its still good for NZ cricket
]
Spiro Zavos said | December 13th 2008 @ 3:47pm | Report comment
There was another video umpire LBW in NZ’s first innings, with Kyle Mills being given out by Rudi Koertzen, the video umpire, after the field umpire turned the appeal down.
In this case, under dispute was whether the ball hit the pad first and then bat or bat first and then pad.
The video replays showed that the ball hit the pad first. And the batsmen under the double jeopardy nonsense of the review of LBWs system was then given out.
Hawke-eye showed the ball going on to hit the stumps and pitched in line. But I believe this information shouldn’t be crucial to a LBW decision because Hawke-eye is not accurate. Again, like the Flynn decision, it seemed to me that the ball could have missed the leg-stump, and the reason why the appeal was turned down by the field umpire.
With people like Koertzen second-guessing field umpires on matters of interpretation – whether a ball would have gone on to hit the stumps – we are going to get into some terrible rows in keenly contested Tests like the Ashes series or in India or even the Australia-South Africa series coming up next week.
The technology should be used to decide matters of fact which it is good at doing. It should not be used to decide matters of conjecture like LBW decisions.
One final point, both these video umpire decisions were given despite the fact that the batsmen were well forward. Admittedly the pitch is keeping low, from time to time. But everyone who has played even a little bit of cricket knows that giving LBWs against batsmen playing forward is a fraught thing to do.
There have been too many cases of a ball somehow missing the stumps when it looked for all the money to be crashing into them for umpires to disregard the old maxim that a player hit on the front pad with a decent foreward movement should always been given the benefit of the doubt. Only when he doesn’t play a shot should the benefit of the doubt be shifted against the batsman.
Spiro Zavos said | December 13th 2008 @ 5:57pm | Report comment
Hold the presses. Two other decisions that have gone to the video umpire in this Test confirm my argument, I believe. There was a caught-behind appeal against a NZ batsman for perhaps tickling a ball going down the legside. This was turned down on the grounds that it was unclear if the ball had hit the bat.
This, of course, is the correct decision. Unclear information is always grounds, or should be, for turning down appeals on matters of fact. .
My argument is that all LBW decision are essentially NOT matters of fact, whether the ball would hit the wicket, because we can never know for certain. This is why the video umpire should never give an LBW. At best he can inform an umpire that the ball hit the bat or did not hit the bat before crashing into the pad.
But the field umlpire’s call should be the appropriate call.
Under the present new system this does not apply.
We had another LBW appeal against a West Indian batsman which the field umpire rejected and was also rejected by the video umpire, even though there seemed to be on Hawke-eye ‘evidence’ that the ball would have hit the stumps.
When it Hawke-eye to be trusted and when is it not to be trusted?
There are going to be some explosive decisions taken by video umpires, in my opinion, if this system is not adjusted to take into account a ban on the video umpire giving batsmen out LBW.
Danny said | December 13th 2008 @ 8:55pm | Report comment
Spiro
Not sure what you base the assumption Rudi is using hawkeye as opposed to his own view of what the ball was going to do for the three LBWs so far. Certainly we see hawkeye on TV and its likely Rudi looks as well. I thought all four decisions were correct so far in particular the Windies opener who could easily have been given out by an umpire without the power to refer to TMO.
I’ve been looking forward to the introduction of this system since the Sydney Indian test earlier this year. If ever there was a test that should have been an exciting draw it was that one. The way it ended was a travesty and frankly ruined the whole series.
Now officialdom needs to reduce the toss to once per series and let captains alternate the choice to bat or bowl first depending on that one toss – I’m fed up with the importance of winning a 50-50 coin toss dominating every game.
Brett McKay said | December 14th 2008 @ 2:49pm | Report comment
Spiro, your final update has just confirmed my already low regard for the referral system. As I commented against Ben Conkey’s articile last week, how Hotspot was rejected for use and Hawkeye allowed is simply beyond belief. In the case you memtioned – the legside caught behind – Hotspot would have showed beyond all doubt if the bat did touch ball, and a clear decision would have been made. But because it isn’t allowed to be used under the referral system, we’ve seen this inconclusive decision allowed to stand.
I just can’t comprehend why so much faith is put in th hands of a predictive, inexact technology like Hawkeye, when the exact infrared images from Hotspot eliminate doubt, but yet isn’t used.
I saw the Flynn LBW overule too – even Hawkeye wasn’t completely convincing that he was hit in line with off stump. So where was the benefit of the doubt for the batsman there??
Spiro said | December 14th 2008 @ 5:25pm | Report comment
Brett, I agree with you that the hot-spot is the ideal technology for the video umpire as it deals with matters of fact – whether the ball touched a bat or not, and when, before or after it hit the pad etc
There will be terrible controversies when the video umpires start over-ruling the field umpires on LBWs. My argument is that it is OK, desirable in fact, for the video umpire to state the fact, say, that the ball hit the ball before it hit a pad.Amnd why hot-spot can’t be used in these cases is baffling.
But it is not OK for video umpires to decide LBWs over the judgment of the field umpire when the issue is a matter of judgment about whether the ball was going to hit the stumps.
A fearless prediction: sooner or later, sooner probably, there is going to be an all-mighty row about a double jeodardy LBW decision.
And I say that the person who starts the row will be justified. The ICC has once again made a terrible mistake.
Brett McKay said | December 14th 2008 @ 6:27pm | Report comment
Spiro, you’re spot on, and the scenario you’ve presented about double-jeopardy LBWs will dead-est eventuate. I’ll throw up another one that I can see happening, and again, this one I mentioned in response to Ben Conkey’s article the other day:
A batsman will challenge an LBW decision because he knows he got an slight inside edge, but because Hotspot cannot be used, the close-up video will be inconclusive on the inside edge. Hawkeye will show that the ball hit in line, and the decision will stand. Batsman will trudge off the ground and be greeted in the dressing room with Hotspot images showing he did indeed get the inside edge. So the decision will be wrong twice…
I make no attempt to hide my dislike of Hawkeye, indeed I said as much in my article back a few months ago (http://www.theroar.com.au/2008/10/13/some-of-this-technology-might-be-what-it%e2%80%99s-cracked-up-to-be/).
As you’ve correctly stated Spiro, the ICC has once again erred…
JohnB said | December 15th 2008 @ 8:44am | Report comment
I’ve previously suggested that for LBW’s, the right to refer should be the field umpire’s. The question they should be able to ask the 3rd umpire is something to the effect of “is there any reason why I can’t give this out?” – in other words, the field umpire should form the view that the ball would hit the wicket and then ask the 3rd umpire to advise on the sorts of things that slow motioin shots can pick up well – did the ball strike the batsmen in line, did it pitch outside leg and did the batsman get an edge? The 3rd umpire should not be asked to advise on the sorts of things replays and other technology don’t do well – height and predicting future path. It is best to leave those to the umpire in the middle.
Spiro said | December 16th 2008 @ 10:03am | Report comment
At the conclusion of the NZ-West Indies Test at Dunedin, the WI captain Chris Gayle questioned the relevance of the ICC referral experiment saying that he preferred to play without replays.
I think we have moved beyond this position in cricket. The technology now exists to decide matters of fact, whether a ball was caught fairly, run outs, stumping and snicks etc. This technology should be used.
Daniel Vittori, a thoughtful captain and bowler suggested that the number of unsuccessful referrals be limited to one, from three. so that the umpires made the bulk of the decisions. He got two positive referrals, so there is no sour grapes in this suggestion.
A compromise might be a limit of two unsuccessful referrals an innings, rather than each day. For other commentators have made the point that Test cricket is already played at a glacial pace and more and more referrals just helps the freezing up of play.
As well as restricting teams to two unsuccessful referrals an innings, I’d restrict the video umpire in the case of LBW decisions to merely stating whether the ball was in line, that is hitting the pads in line with the stumps, and whether the ball was snicked or not. Restrict the video umpire in other words to matters of fact.
Under no circumstances would the video umpire rule on whether the ball was going to hit the stumps. This is not a matter of fact and should be left to the field umpire.
Also, with the hot-spot technology available it makes no sense not to use it.
Greg Russell said | December 16th 2008 @ 11:01am | Report comment
Spiro et al.,
Some things the ICC does are actually far more sensible and thought-through than one at first realizes. One of these, I believe, is the video appeals system. One thing that may help people to understand it better is the following subtlety that probably has not been widely noticed: when a run out or stumping appeal is referred to the third umpire, he activates a light system to indicate whether the batsman is out; but when a captain’s appeal is referred to the third umpire, the lights are not used. In other words, in one case the third umpire makes the decision, in the other he does not. This is why Dave Richardson, the ICC’s manager for cricket operations, made the following strong statement last October: “The two on-field umpires should be in charge of the review system”. It is only now that I have seen the system in operation that I have been able to understand this statement and appreciate its sense. It is that the third umpire does not make the decision and should not try to make it; rather, all the third umpire should do is advise the on-field umpire of facts, and then the on-field umpire makes a renewed decision on the basis of that information.
The Flynn decision illustrates all this well. From what I have learned, umpire Koertzen did not tell umpire Saheba to give Flynn out lbw. Rather, the crucial thing that Koertzen did was to tell Saheba that the ball had hit Flynn directly in front of off stump (something factually established by the allowed use of the video lines on the pitch). Since Saheba had evidently given Flynn not out because he thought the batsman had been hit just outside off stump, Saheba (correctly) changed his decision. Tellingly, most of the New Zealand media praised this chain of events, even though it led to a deserving young Kiwi batsman being denied a maiden test century.
In other instances during the match we saw the opposite scenario unfold: Koertzen could not report any new fact to umpire Saheba, who therefore upheld his initial lbw decision, even though video replays suggested the ball hitting the stumps on the balance of probability.
Finally, did anyone notice that almost all (or was it all?) the appeals involved umpire Saheba? As someone in the NZ media remarked, the appeals system basically saved a debutante umpire from having a shocker. While there is a disturbing element to this (that a new umpire should be called into question so often), overall it’s a very positive development that this test will not be remembered for Saheba’s shortcomings.
challa said | April 25th 2009 @ 1:46pm | Report comment
I like the appeals system.
It adds another dimension to the game. It also has the added psychological benefit of allowing players to legitimately question decisions they believe to be poor.
As to the accuracy of Hawkeye i cannot testify. But my mate who is a professor of mathematics at Melbourne University says it is more than possible to predict the flight path of a ball. He does have some credentials – he designs the algorithms the USA uses for its missile tracking.
Hawkeye or another system also has the bonus of being consistent and transparent.