Rethinking the referral system

Rewind to the first Test between India and Sri Lanka at the SSC in Colombo- Virender Sehwag offers no shot to a ball from Muttiah Muralitharan that seems to have clearly pitched outside leg stump. Sri Lanka call for the review. Ian Bishop says: “That’s pitched outside the leg stump. Not Out will be the verdict". Lo and behold, we get the animations, and the graphics. Suddenly to the disbelief of all of us watching, we are informed that 10% of the ball was line with the leg stump. Out was the verdict.

Forward to Jamaica. Tony Hill gives Ramnaresh Sarwan out lbw, Sarwan calls for the review – replays indicate that it probably struck him high, Daryl Harper reverses the decision, Hawkeye then indicates the ball would have hit the top of leg stump. No wonder I was relieved we wouldn’t have this comedy being enacted in the Ashes.

The other side of the coin though, was when KP was given out to a ball pitching two feet outside the leg stump in he fourth Test between the teams in Barbados – a dreadful decision from Russell Tiffin. Even Harper got that one right by reversing it. So, you needed the Tiffins and the Asoka De Silvas to vindicate the referral system.

A decent referral system needs to address the following. Firstly, adjudicate only on the clear errors, and not on the marginal ones. Secondly, avoid the time lost gazing at the screen and the "tactical reviews"- where Monty Panesar asks for a referral for a stone cold lbw simply because the team has a referral left. The way to go about it, though I suspect the ICC isn’t waiting with bated breath, is this. Firstly, eliminate Hawkeye in its entirety. Get rid of the animations, the "mat", the random data - " ball pitched 2.5 feet in front of the crease" – etc. Don’t use Snicko and don’t use Hot Spot. If a decision cannot be clearly seen to be wrong on normal slow-motion replay, it doesn’t deserve to be reversed. Each of the Ashes stinkers- Michael Hussey and Ricky Ponting at Lords, Ravi Bopara at Leeds, Marcus North and Stuart Clark at The Oval , Ian Bell’s not outs at Edgbaston, Shane Watson's lbw not given at The Oval , Billy Bowden's non-decision on the first ball at Leeds - would have evidently been reversed on a simple slow motion replay. We didn’t need any of the complicated, obfuscating technology. This would ensure that only the more clear-cut wrong decisions would be reversed, and that the third umpire would have access really to the same faculties that the on-field umpires and, most importantly, the players have. The players don’t have a mat showing where the leg stump is, why should the third umpire? Cricket is not 100m racing, archery or shooting. It shouldn’t be a game of millimetres.

Also, forget the three referrals each innings per team. Let every team be allowed six referrals (unsuccessful) per match. They could use them when they bat or bowl, and in any innings. Also, the number of unsuccessful appeals should be tallied against the captains and an appropriate penalty system introduced. These measures (even just the first, and forget the one dealing with the captains) would reduce the number of frivolous or tactical references.

Some commentators talk about their discomfort with players referring decisions, and they would rather have the umpires make the call. That would be disastrous, and I would imagine we may have every serious appeal being referred. The problem is compounded with the predictive aspect of Hawk Eye. At the Oval , we occasionally saw batsmen kick away balls turning in, two feet away from the off stump. Each time it happened, the commentators would mutter: “The Umpire would be guessing. He can’t give that out.” With Hawkeye - if it shows the ball brushing the outside of off, the umpire, with the referral system in place, will be obliged to. Is that really good for the game?

Nice piece Gopal. I agree with you that the great value of the review is, or would be, in getting rid of the obviously wrong decisions. I want to the players, not the umpires, to decide the result. The review system would get rid of the gnawing frustration of feeling that the umpires made the difference.

But I think you're unlikely to win a back-to-basics argument with regard to the use of technology.

Compare this with the run-out referrals we already use. Everybody has become used to run-outs being decided as a matter of millimetres, so why not lbws?

This may mean more speculative reviews, but if a captain speculates too often, he'll be wrong too often and he'll lose the right. So, caution will win out and captains will generally only call for it when they feel an injustice has been done.

Enough of the stone age, let's use every device we can. I have no interest in the human frailties of Rudi and Billy, I'm only interested in the frailties of Ricky, Sachin, and co.

I am in favour of technology being introduced. Earlier the better. Once we introduce technology, it will only get better and better as people will try to remove the glitches if there are any.

Also, I suggest that, along with technology, the ICC should introduce a penalty to be imposed on players if they do not walk when they nick the ball or for bat pad catches. There is no way a batsman can say that he does not know whether he has nicked it or not unless the bat has made contact with the ball and pad at the same time. So if technology (hot spot or slow mo replays) show that he has nicked the ball and still has chosen not to walk, the batsman should be penalised for dishonesty. Yes, its an umpire's job to give a batsman out. But that does not mean that batsmen have to cheat.