And so the dreaded decision review system is back. It’s matured enough to be own its own acronym, DRS, but not enough to quell the doubters such as me, nor more eloquent observers of the game: Mike Atherton.
Those who would wish to watch the relentless march of perfectionism — the ultimate endgame of professionalism — should ask themselves what watching sport without human error would be like. And to those who say that if sport is worth playing, then it is worth playing properly, I would simply quote Gideon Haigh, occasionally of this parish: “When cricket is thought to be too important to be left to mere humans, then it is in danger of mattering too much to be enjoyed.”
Cricket has lost something rare and precious and it was not what Collingwood or those in thrall to automated perfectionism were searching for.
The entire article deserves your attention, even if you’re in favour of the relentless march towards isolating the on-field umpires in pursuit of apparent perfection. Such a notion, as Atherton points out, is entirely false in a breed of entertainment which thrives on risk and chance and derring do and bravery such as sport.
What saddens me most with technology in cricket, apart from the speed with which it has changed the sport in the past ten years, is understanding who it is supposed to benefit. It isn’t the spectators, on TV or at the ground. It might once have been to protect the on-field umpires, but has instead stripped them of the powers bestowed on them by the laws of the game. Their word was once final, but not any longer. So what purpose – other than counting to six; stretching their arms horizontally and vertically; occasionally standing on one leg; drawing an imaginary TV screen in the shape of a square or helping to calm angry players – do they now serve?
The impact has so far been that more players – fractionally more, because the reviews are limited in number – are receiving the correct decision, and near-total justice has been achieved. But the system isn’t yet (and won’t be for years, if ever) foolproof enough to ever allow officials to be 100% certain about each decision, which makes you wonder why we ever went down this path in the first place. Well, it ought not make us wonder. We know who runs the game, and it’s certainly not the ICC.
Since when did sport, a mere game – harmless folly between one human being and another – become in need of a judicial system thereby ostracising the very people it was invented to help entertain?
Well it’s not ostracising me. I’m sick of seeing shockers made by the same umpires over and over again, and tradition shouldn’t be used as a shield to protect on-field incompetence.
As for sport without error. Human error exists in the players. It will always exist in the players, and I, like pretty much every cricket fan I’d imagine, watch the sport for the players, NOT for the umpires. If technology can be used to obtain a bit of justice for the players, then I’m all in favour of it, and if it comes at the expense of the umpires’ sense of purpose, so be it.
You can’t uninvent technology. Now that the viewer can see the mistakes, it’s only fair that the umpires and players should have access to the same information.
It’s very unwise to speculate about what technology might or might not be able to do in the future – the advances have been spectacular in a short time, way beyond what anyone in the game had predicted. It’s quite possible that the whole process of verification will be speeded up to the extent that referral is no longer needed – the umpire may be able to double-check in quick time.
One unforeseen benefit of the technology – of which even the crustiest old fogeys must approve – is the righting of the balance in favour of spin bowlers: batsmen can no longer just keep stretching a pad forward and rely on the benefit of the doubt. Front-foot LBWs were never given until very recently. Maybe off-spin will make a welcome return.
All this technology has been introduced by the tv companies to give them and especially their commentators and pundits, an inflated sense of purpose. It actually adds nothing to the game as it is played on the field apart from making the umpires almost superfluous in many situations.
Umpiring is a hellish job at any level. Split second decisions have to be made that can have huge outcomes in terms of the match. The best advice I was ever given about umpiring was “never justify your decisions” and that is for umpiring local cricket. What it must be like to umpire in a test match where every ball is analysed about 20 times I can only dread.
Technology can put undue pressure on players too. If a player honestly believes he didn’t get an edge or took a clean catch only for the 15th replay to prove him wrong there is the implication that he has cheated. Its also not impossible to imagine a fielder claiming a catch he knew was in the grass in the hope that the replays would be inconclusive enough to enable it to be awarded.
Then there is the whole coaches checking the replay before signaling to the players to ask for a referral question… nuff said there.
All the new technology distracts from the game as it is played. It places the umpires and players under enormous pressure. It distorts the game as it is played turning it into a technology spectacle instead of a sporting contest. All to give some ex-players in a commentary box a chance to have something to talk about because they are not capable of describing the game on the field.
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