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It is a given about the game of cricket that the umpire’s call is indisputable. We tell it to our juniors, and it is just as relevant at the top level: if the umpire gives you out, you must walk, and you cannot challenge his authority.
It’s quite an endowment of power for an officiator. Of course, power comes with a price.
‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’. So lamented King Henry the Fourth in Shakespeare’s history Henry IV, Part II about the restlessness of responsibility that comes with great power and authority.
And indeed, I could name more than a few occasions where umpires appeared to be all the worse for wear after missing the blatantly obvious that occurs on their watch and right in front of them.
Aleem Dar’s not out for Stuart Broad stands out vividly for being so recent.
I could add to that Sachin Tendulkar being given out LBW to a ball on a good length that would have flown comfortably over the stumps.
Or James Pattinson’s refused LBW against Ravichandran Ashwin that was about as plumb as they come, and at the other end of the spectrum, Curtley Ambrose’s LBW that was given out in spite of the fact that it seemed to satisfy virtually none of the conditions of LBW dismissals.
Notice that there is a different umpire involved in each incident.
Howlers can happen to anyone, and there are a swathe of YouTube videos memorialising those moments of infamy and inviting the outraged, the amused, and the snide to congregate and bicker over.
But I say to you that this is okay. I have no doubt that umpires have been handing down shocking verdicts since the inception of the sport.
Donald Bradman was surely dudded as many times as Brian Lara. Stuart Broad was certainly not the first, and nor will he be the last to stand his ground after being redeemed of so blatant an offence. The humble howler has been a part of the game…
Up until now.
We all know what the Decision Review System (DRS) is, so I will cut to the chase.
Why do we need it? For what reasons have we decided that the element of human error on the part of the umpire should be taken completely out of the game?
And why are we so arrogant as to think that the DRS is an adequate solution to this problem – if indeed it is a problem?
This Ashes series has highlighted some of the issues that make the DRS an inherently flawed system.
First of all, it is subjective. We see the replays that the third umpire sees, but sometimes you get those 50-50 decisions that divide viewers as to the correct decision.
The umpire must declare one decision or another, and sometimes he takes a view that does not appear to be supported by the evidence.
Consider Jonathan Trott’s second innings dismissal at Trent Bridge that probably involved an inside edge.
Consider Phil Hughes dismissal in the first innings at Lord’s and Ashton Agar’s dismissal in the second innings – a sequence of events that demonstrated that audio evidence alone could outweigh a lack of evidence from Hot Spot and even overturn the umpire’s call.
If there is any level of subjectivity about a decision, what on earth is a third umpire supposed to do?
He can only make a decision based on the evidence presented to him, and often the evidence can be somewhat ambiguous.
The DRS evidence supposedly must be ‘conclusive’ to overturn an umpire’s decision.
But what then do we make of Agar’s dismissal, when the evidence could have been said to be suggestive, but anything but conclusive?
The theory behind the DRS is just that – theory. In practise the guidelines of its use seem to be being ignored or incorrectly interpreted by the officiators on the job.
The operators of the system are at fault, but they are at fault because the system puts them in a position to be at fault.
In the days before the third umpire, there was a much simpler system – if the on field umpire was uncertain about the merits of an appeal, he would give it not out.
You may know this unwritten law as ‘the benefit of the doubt goes to the batsman’. It is a valued tenet of cricketing lore that is observed and recognised at every level of club cricket.
It is unfortunate, then, that the DRS is completely trashing this tradition in its misguided crusade for absolute correctness.
I could refer you to two of the three Ashes dismissals that I have described above, but I think an even better example was Hughes’ dismissal in the second innings at Trent Bridge.
To recap, Graeme Swann bowled a ball that appeared to pitch outside the line of leg stump, then came back to rap Phil Hughes on the pads in front of the stumps. He was given not out based on the pitch of the ball.
England immediately reviewed the decision, and Hawkeye demonstrated the ball to be just barely on the legal side of LBW law. The decision was overturned, and Hughes was given out.
Now let me get this straight – I do not dispute that Hughes was out by the letter of the law. What concerns me is how alarmingly not out it looked in live play.
I said it at the time, and I repeat my assertion – no umpire anywhere in the world would have been prepared to give that out had they been standing at wicket.
That dismissal was a classic case for the ‘benefit of the doubt’ to be awarded to the batsman. England reviewed it, however, and a reasonable decision was trampled into the dirt.
Perhaps the most damning issue with the DRS, however, is that it is not stopping the howlers! The teams are given just two reviews, and if they use them up unsuccessfully they can no longer challenge decisions.
As recently as the Trent Bridge Test, I placed the blame for this at the door of the offending parties of the wasted reviews.
However, it cannot be denied that some unsuccessful challenges can be very reasonable indeed.
And that’s the point, really. Not every unsuccessful review is ‘tactical’. If you review two decisions that initially appear to have done you an injustice and are twice denied, you are then completely exposed to the whimsical howler.
This will happen under the current form of the DRS. Whether you have any sympathy or not depends on whether you think the ‘ability to review’ should be a competitive part of the sporting contest.
I agree that the highest levels of a sport should be afforded some additional scrutiny, and I am not completely against the use of advanced technology at the highest level of sport that can’t be used at lower levels.
I don’t object when umpires refer run-outs or stumpings to the third umpire, and if the technology exists to examine other types of dismissals, than it should be made available to the umpires.
Nevertheless, I reject its misuse. If an umpire sees no reason to call for it than his decision should stand – regardless of whether his call was a howler or not.
A player should be allowed to request it, but the umpire should not compelled to call for further examination. That should be entirely up to him.
And that would be fair for everyone.
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