The third umpire referral system is on trial during the West Indies v England Test series and there can only be one verdict: guilty. It simply cannot be used in the long-term in its current format. Daryl Harper has seen to that.
The system has flaws and leaves room for confusion. Ignoring the fact that it contradicts the moral code of players not challenging the authority of umpires, the system is badly constructed.
Third umpires need irrefutable evidence that the original on-field judgement was incorrect, not an element of doubt that umpire Harper cited when he gave Ramnaresh Sarwan a reprieve at Sabina Park.
This is fine in theory, but the man behind the monitor does not have the tools available to him to make such a decision. Sarwan therefore should have therefore been given out, as per Tony Hill’s original call, just as umpire Harper was right to uphold the dismissals of Devon Smith and Ryan Hinds at Barbados.
However, it is revealing that surely neither Smith nor Hinds would have been given out if they were originally given not out – there was not enough evidence to prove that Graeme Swann’s deliveries would have hit the stumps, that is until Hawkeye confirmed as much by using the predictive element that the ICC has not sanctioned for use in the referral system.
It is not these borderline decisions that TV evidence seeks to police. It is the blatant ones, the missed inside edges and instances where the ball pitches outside leg stump for LBW appeals, the flick of the pad rather than glove for caught behinds. We have not seen many of those in this series, suggesting the problem of bad on-field umpiring is not as bad as many think.
The system is only as good as the people who use it and the final nail in the trial system’s coffin came not when umpire Harper failed to reprieve Shivnarine Chanderpaul when he was hit on the pad by one going over the top, but soon after when he gave Brendan Nash out.
It is worth remembering that Nash had originally been given not out by Aleem Dar. England referred it, as it certainly did look close, and perversely Harper saw enough reason to overturn the decision. In other words, he was 100% sure the ball would have hit the stumps. Hawkeye went on to prove otherwise.
We really do have a problem when the use of technology results in the reversing of a decision that was correct in the first place.
Umpires make mistakes due to human error; Daryl Harper has proved that that factor is not taken away by the extra time TV referrals allow for. If the ICC find umpiring mistakes so unpalatable, they must tighten the third umpire system by making sure its adjudicators know if they are making decisions based on doubt or irrefutable evidence and that they have all available technology to hand.
Written by Philip Oliver, an online sports writer who blogs about Test match cricket.
Showing posts with label Tony Hill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tony Hill. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 March 2009
Sunday, 8 February 2009
Test umpiring reaches a new low
The First Test between West Indies and England at Sabina Park witnessed many humilations, including England succumbing to their third lowest Test innings total of all time. Yet, the match should also be remembered for some of the worst Test umpiring ever seen, as the elite panel showed once again why it is the most inappropriately named unit in cricket.
With an array of technology at his disposal and newly agreed rules and procedures on referrals, Daryl Harper decided to go his own way. When asked to adjudicate on an lbw decision against Ramnaresh Sarwan he ignored the need for irrefutable evidence. Instead he told on-field umpire Tony Hill that there was doubt about the decision, putting Hill in an impossible situation - the kind of situation the new referral system was designed to avoid. This confusion led to the lbw being wrongly overturned. Just to prove it was no fluke, later in the innings Harper watched several television replays of Daren Powell clearly missing the ball, only to confirm the on-field decision that he was caught behind.
One could be generous and say that he was muddled up with the new rules and regulations, that he was caught up in the moment, using his honed instincts instead of following the correct procedure. However, the man is a professional umpire. He is paid to undertsand the laws of cricket and all the rules relating to umpiring both on and off the field. It seems that the Daryl Harper that sits in the third umpire's seat is no better than the one that officiates on the field.
Which brings us to Tony Hill, one of the two on-field umpires. Now it is true that he was brought in at the last minute because the umpire who was supposed to stand could not get his visa sorted out in time, which shows that the elite panel are as organised as they are competent, yet Hill was deemed fit to stand in a Test match. What followed was an embarassment of poor decisions, many of which were overturned by the referral system, which seemed at times to be there purely to show poor Mr Hill up.
If this had been an isolated match, riddled with poor decisions because of the new referral system, then it might be fair to let the matter pass and move on to the usual high standard of umpiring. But this is simply not the case. Over the last twenty five years watching Test cricket I have witnessed consistently poor levels of umpiring. Many of these went unnoticed before the days of multiple television replays and serious media scrutiny. But now the evidence just continues to accumulate.
Whether it be high profile decisions like those in the Australia v India series last year or England v Pakistan at the Oval in 2006, or just the run of the mill poor decisions that get made in every match, does not really matter. what does is that Test umpiring is poor and the elite panel has done nothing to alleviate the problem. The referral system, despite being poorly applied at Sabina Park, is the way forward. The use of more and better technology must be introduced to reduce the high number of errors. It may take a long time, but a system will eventually emerge that allows Test matches to be played with minimal wrong decisions and where the result is purely a matter of which team plays better.
With an array of technology at his disposal and newly agreed rules and procedures on referrals, Daryl Harper decided to go his own way. When asked to adjudicate on an lbw decision against Ramnaresh Sarwan he ignored the need for irrefutable evidence. Instead he told on-field umpire Tony Hill that there was doubt about the decision, putting Hill in an impossible situation - the kind of situation the new referral system was designed to avoid. This confusion led to the lbw being wrongly overturned. Just to prove it was no fluke, later in the innings Harper watched several television replays of Daren Powell clearly missing the ball, only to confirm the on-field decision that he was caught behind.
One could be generous and say that he was muddled up with the new rules and regulations, that he was caught up in the moment, using his honed instincts instead of following the correct procedure. However, the man is a professional umpire. He is paid to undertsand the laws of cricket and all the rules relating to umpiring both on and off the field. It seems that the Daryl Harper that sits in the third umpire's seat is no better than the one that officiates on the field.
Which brings us to Tony Hill, one of the two on-field umpires. Now it is true that he was brought in at the last minute because the umpire who was supposed to stand could not get his visa sorted out in time, which shows that the elite panel are as organised as they are competent, yet Hill was deemed fit to stand in a Test match. What followed was an embarassment of poor decisions, many of which were overturned by the referral system, which seemed at times to be there purely to show poor Mr Hill up.
If this had been an isolated match, riddled with poor decisions because of the new referral system, then it might be fair to let the matter pass and move on to the usual high standard of umpiring. But this is simply not the case. Over the last twenty five years watching Test cricket I have witnessed consistently poor levels of umpiring. Many of these went unnoticed before the days of multiple television replays and serious media scrutiny. But now the evidence just continues to accumulate.
Whether it be high profile decisions like those in the Australia v India series last year or England v Pakistan at the Oval in 2006, or just the run of the mill poor decisions that get made in every match, does not really matter. what does is that Test umpiring is poor and the elite panel has done nothing to alleviate the problem. The referral system, despite being poorly applied at Sabina Park, is the way forward. The use of more and better technology must be introduced to reduce the high number of errors. It may take a long time, but a system will eventually emerge that allows Test matches to be played with minimal wrong decisions and where the result is purely a matter of which team plays better.
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