I am an ardent cricket fan and have stayed away from writing about cricket so far, as every time I see a blog written about cricket, comments get ugly soon. However, I find myself compelled to write about certain things and these arguments are based on my years of experience of watching international cricket. I want to discuss only two things here: use of technology and use of Duckworth/Lewis rule.
If one looks back at some ten or more years old cricket match, one finds that plenty of wrong judgments were made by umpires. The game could have gone either way if those decisions were not wrong as no technology was used in those days. Then we saw the dawn of new era of use of television reply in this game. Many were unhappy at the beginning as it was thought that the use of television reply undermines the authority of on-field umpires. However, it was found in just few years that it is not the case as still an umpire, not necessarily the field-umpire, has the final say. What is more important here, a fair game or someone’s authority? As I have argued earlier that a wrong decision could significantly alter the game’s course, especially when it happens with some key player. There are plenty of games/sports where a good use of technology is employed to decide the fair winner. Just to name a few, distance running, auto-racing, american football etc. Even though, the use of television reply could be used for many things, just for now I would argue its use for the close LBW calls. In cricket, just like when an umpire feels to consult the third umpire for a run-out or confirmation of whether a fielder touched the boundary, he could ask the third umpire to confirm whether the batsman hit the ball with the bat or glove in a close LBW decision. People would argue that field umpires are best equipped to know (I would argue against this also, not in this blog) if the ball was going to hit the stumps in LBW calls but many times umpires miss an obvious nick of the bat. Cricket authorities should definitely look at this. I do not want to say that technology will always give right decision but it will definitely improve upon errors made by the field umpires.
At the same time, each captain /coach should be given a challenge in each innings, just like in American football where he can challenge the umpire’s decision that was taken without any aid. This challenge would significantly help captains in saving their best players from bad umpiring judgments. I would leave it to the readers to discuss details of this suggestion. If anything else, this would significantly reduce the stress of umpires.
I also have problem with the use of D/L rule or for that matter any rule to decide the winner in the case of an unfinished game. Even though, not all the details are known about how this rule works, most cricket fans have a good idea about it. A rule uses historical data not science and doesn’t consider many uncertainties associated with cricket to decide the game’s outcome. No other game uses past statistics to decide the fate of a game as everyone knows that statistics hide more than it reveals. If a game is not completed, it should be declared ‘undecided’ or replayed from where it was stopped in similar conditions. It is seen very often that it does not become obvious who is going to win until the last ball is bowled. Even an insignificant batsman or bowler can play magically on his day and hence his past performance is irrelevant in deciding how he would play on this day.
If one looks back at some ten or more years old cricket match, one finds that plenty of wrong judgments were made by umpires. The game could have gone either way if those decisions were not wrong as no technology was used in those days. Then we saw the dawn of new era of use of television reply in this game. Many were unhappy at the beginning as it was thought that the use of television reply undermines the authority of on-field umpires. However, it was found in just few years that it is not the case as still an umpire, not necessarily the field-umpire, has the final say. What is more important here, a fair game or someone’s authority? As I have argued earlier that a wrong decision could significantly alter the game’s course, especially when it happens with some key player. There are plenty of games/sports where a good use of technology is employed to decide the fair winner. Just to name a few, distance running, auto-racing, american football etc. Even though, the use of television reply could be used for many things, just for now I would argue its use for the close LBW calls. In cricket, just like when an umpire feels to consult the third umpire for a run-out or confirmation of whether a fielder touched the boundary, he could ask the third umpire to confirm whether the batsman hit the ball with the bat or glove in a close LBW decision. People would argue that field umpires are best equipped to know (I would argue against this also, not in this blog) if the ball was going to hit the stumps in LBW calls but many times umpires miss an obvious nick of the bat. Cricket authorities should definitely look at this. I do not want to say that technology will always give right decision but it will definitely improve upon errors made by the field umpires.
At the same time, each captain /coach should be given a challenge in each innings, just like in American football where he can challenge the umpire’s decision that was taken without any aid. This challenge would significantly help captains in saving their best players from bad umpiring judgments. I would leave it to the readers to discuss details of this suggestion. If anything else, this would significantly reduce the stress of umpires.
I also have problem with the use of D/L rule or for that matter any rule to decide the winner in the case of an unfinished game. Even though, not all the details are known about how this rule works, most cricket fans have a good idea about it. A rule uses historical data not science and doesn’t consider many uncertainties associated with cricket to decide the game’s outcome. No other game uses past statistics to decide the fate of a game as everyone knows that statistics hide more than it reveals. If a game is not completed, it should be declared ‘undecided’ or replayed from where it was stopped in similar conditions. It is seen very often that it does not become obvious who is going to win until the last ball is bowled. Even an insignificant batsman or bowler can play magically on his day and hence his past performance is irrelevant in deciding how he would play on this day.
