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Nathan Lyon is a number 11 batsman. This Adelaide day-night Test has produced conditions which have made it difficult for even top order batsmen to make runs.
Some of the reactions to his non-dismissal yesterday have been exaggerated.
Twitter was awash with cricket fans making ludicrous claims.
They were variously calling Lyon a cheat, accusing Englishman third umpire Nigel Llong of deliberately trying to dupe New Zealand, or claiming that visiting teams always are robbed by umpires in Australia.
Some New Zealand fans were stating that Lyon’s not-out decision alone had swung the series to Australia and would be the key reason were the Kiwis to lose the Test.
Frustration with the DRS system is completely understandable, and I’ll get to that in a moment. But let’s not get carried away here – Lyon bats at 11 for a reason and conditions have been very challenging for batting in this match.
New Zealand are at fault for allowing Lyon and fellow tail-ender Mitchell Starc to score so easily following the controversial decision.
After bowling with great discipline to that point, the Kiwis seemed to let the DRS decision distract them. Their bowling lost its direction and Brendon McCullum’s tactics were poor.
In particular, his choice of bowling out-of-form spinner Mark Craig to the hobbled Starc was dumbfounding.
Anyone who has kept track of Starc’s batting would be well aware that he loves to take to the spinners, and is adept at dispatching them over the leg side. He has a Test 99 on a turning track in India due to this skill against spin.
With a fractured foot limiting Starc’s feet movement, the obvious ploy was to target him with fast yorkers.
Instead, McCullum went with Craig, his limited tweaker who has been dispatched over and over by the Australians in this series, conceding more than five runs per over with an average in the 60s. Starc was patently delighted with the opportunity to sit in his crease and heave a slow bowler.
As he has done time and again to spinners, even those far more talented than Craig, Starc peppered the leg side boundary with robust blows.
In the space of nine balls, Starc smashed Craig to the boundary three times and over it twice, reaping 24 runs in the process and earning Australia a crucial lead in a low-scoring match.
This strategic blunder by McCullum was every bit as significant in the flow of this Test as was the Lyon DRS fiasco.
Now, to that DRS decision. There is both doubt and confusion surrounding the reliability of the technology used in the DRS system and the interpretations made of the technological evidence by the third umpire.
Hot Spot showed a large mark on Lyon’s blade, one so big it suggested a thick edge. With no visible evidence as to what, other than the ball, could have created this mark, why would Llong not overturn the decision and dismiss Lyon?
Just as strangely, how is it possible that such a big edge would not create a sound on the Snicko system?
At other times Snicko has registered noises from edges so faint that they didn’t show up on Hot Spot, even when spinners have been operating.
Hot Spot was banished from the DRS system for the 2013-14 Ashes after its accuracy was repeatedly questioned as a result of a sequence of controversial decisions in the 2013 Ashes in England.
Snicko, meanwhile, was not used in that 2013 Ashes because of concerns about the ability of the technology to sync the sounds registered with real-time footage.
That 2013 Ashes produced a series of bemusing DRS decisions where the technology available failed to overturn what appeared like incorrect on-field decisions.
The problem is that the third umpire is allowed to overturn a decision when Hot Spot is contradicting Snicko, or vice versa.
Surely it would be safer to require that both Hot Spot and Snicko show evidence of an edge for a not-out caught-behind decision to be overturned.
Currently, for a batsman to have their caught-behind dismissal overturned there must be a double negative – no evidence of an edge on either of the technologies.
A double positive requirement to overturn not-out caught-behinds should be introduced. To delay yesterday’s enthralling Test by six minutes only to get a decision most people disagreed with was needless. Change the rules.