This is the third post in this segment, and comes at an apt time, just as poor Sourav Ganguly has just been handed his second consecutive rough decision in the series. And rough is an understatement for this decision. It was such a big inside edge, that I spotted it on TV with naked eyes. The umpire missing it poses a few questions. I can understand Ian Howell (the umpire in question) missing the two sounds of bat and pad hitting the ball, but how an umpire of international standards can miss a 70-80 degree deviation in the trajectory of the ball, is beyond me. The only explanation that I can think of is that he wasn’t looking at the ball, at the time it was hitting the pad. And he looked at it after it hit the pad, and judged it based on where he saw it hitting. I can still accept this, since umpiring is a tough and thankless job, and it is easy for the umpire to miss 1 ball during the day when he has to concentrate for 540 deliveries. What is beyond me, is that once he has given the decision, and he has also seen on the big screen that it was incorrect, what is the harm in calling the batsman back? I think Simon Taufel did the same for Kevin Peterson in the first test of this series, so why not do it again. And Simon is also not absolved of the mistake he committed. The mistake was not that he gave a rough one against Sachin (I think Sachin deserved to be given out trying to play a bowler like Collingwood, with all due respect to Collingwood, with his pads and not his bat). The mistake was not calling Sachin back when he himself admitted that he realized it was a wrong decision once he saw the replay.
And amidst all this, what does the ICC think is the role of the third umpire. Why can’t he be used to solve all these issues? I mean he must surely have seen the big inside edge in the case of Sourav’s dismissal. Why cannot he communicate to the on field umpire that mate, you are wrong. What is with this entire ego issue about umpires being bosses? Sure, they are supposed to control the game and emotions in it, but they are not supposed to be a factor in the outcome of a match or a career. And then you fine a poor player if he is dissatisfied with a wrong decision. Excuse me, its his career and the match’s outcome on line. I do not find umpires getting penalized for the number of wrong decisions they give (with the exception of the World Cup final, which frankly was a fiasco, where the umpires deserved to be penalized).
I am not against umpires, but I want to re-iterate that it will only empower them if you give them the technology. There is nothing wrong in accepting your incorrect decision. Viewers and players will respect you for that. As for some amount of extra time that this process of the third umpire intervening will consume, I guess on average it would not amount to more than 10 reviews a day. Let us make that 20. On average the third umpire should take a minute to be absolutely sure whether the decision is wrong, and then he has to come out with the verdict. The player would be then have reached the end of the ground, but recalling him will not waste extra time, since the new player would anyway have to come out of the pavilion. So we can assume about 20 minutes at best being spend on this process. That amounts to 5 overs. Ask any player or viewer around the world, he would be willing to play 20 minutes more or 5 overs lesser if we can reduce the number of umpiring errors by that.
I also do not say that technology should replace umpires. A prime example of why this should not happen is Dinesh Karthik’s dismissal yesterday, when the snickometer did not show an edge, but the batsman accepted later that he had nicked it. Kudos to Ian Howell for getting this right. But this should not mean that technology is always fallible. Technology is fallible, but so are umpires, and more so. But together, both of them would make a strong force to reckon, or atleast a team that would be consistent in decision making in a match. And then the viewers and players can be assured that most often, it would be the performances that would swing the match.
No comments:
Post a Comment