What happened to the review system?

Ok.. So, after a long hiatus, I return to write something here. Whoa, this has been some period – 2 great India Australia Test Match series, the IPL and changes in the Indian Cricket Team; the emergence of Ajantha Mendis in world cricket – and the retirement of a few greats. More on these in some later posts!

The review system was introduced during this period – and for some reason – continues to be in trial, in spite of unequivocal good that it brought to the game. Now for starters - the main critique of the review system is that I consumes too much time – and that we could live with a few mistakes from umpires as human errors. I even heard some absurd comment from Sanjay Manjrekar in a recent series – he claimed this took up almost 20-30% of the time of a test match. I still wonder how. Each innings can technically have 6 unsuccessful reviews – 3 by each team. I am not adding up the successful reviews – where the umpire’s incorrect decision is changed – since that is the purpose of the system, and that is the necessity for a fair game. After all, every one of us would be ok with a correct decision being made. So coming back to the issue - even if a review takes 3 minutes (if it takes more than we need more competent 3^rd umpires) it works out to 18 minutes in an innings, and about 72 minutes in the game. Out of the 1800 minutes that the game has, and assuming all 4 innings are completed and all reviews are utilized, we still lose only 72 minutes – that is 4% of the game time. So I do not know how Mr Manjrekar came up with this statistic. He also went on to say that he is willing to accept the umpire’s decision as a human decision and carry on. Hello!! I am sure a commentator would be willing to do that – but what about the players. I have said it earlier – people turn up to watch Sachin bat and Bret Lee bowl – and not for Rudy Koertzen to umpire. So I as a spectator am not willing to accept the incompetence of an umpire make a mockery of a cricket match. Sometimes I wonder who makes these guys a commentator.

And we have not even accounted for the positives it brings to the game. Players appeal lesser – or let me put it this way – unnecessary appealing is cut. I do not want to calculate the time of Harbhajan’s appeals every time the ball hits the batsman’s pads – but I am sure this will be comparable to the earlier stats we have discussed. Players have started walking – since they will anyway be given out in the review system – if they are out.

The only argument that stands negatives of the review system is that we may not have technology to be 100% sure of decisions. Fair enough – if we are not 100% sure – then we accept the field umpires decision. But when we know he is wrong – blatantly at that – why should we shy away from using a good system. We do not need the third umpire to definitely come out with a decision every time. He can aid the on-field umpire with a few replays. What could possibly be wrong with that? I sincerely hope the systems returns – as it is again being tried in the New Zealand – West Indies series.