Hawk-eye inventor aims to dispel Indian concerns

Comments: 25 

Posted by Chris_P on (August 14 2010, 11:38 AM GMT)

@spiritwithin. What series did he complain? He endorses the system! McGrath flared up at Sarwan due to the fact he had a shot at him about his wife who had cancer and has since passed away. Symonds reacted to the racial abuse of Bhaji, again it got personal, and I believe Benn was the one who got suspended as he started it, so what is your point? We were also talking about decision of umpires here, and Aussies take it as part of the game or supporters do. Do the Indian test players complain about umpires? No, but their "fans" who most likely have never held a bat in a serious game of cricket jump on the bandwagon and go on about "biased umpiring". So show me where the Aussies have officially complained about umpire decision going against them? Nope, neither do most of their supporters as they are used to abiding by the umpire's decision. something many Indian fans seem hard to grasp. Racial fans? And stadiums didn't chant monkey sounds at Symonds in India? Open both eyes!

Posted by chaithan on (August 14 2010, 08:35 AM GMT)

Instead of giving appealing powers to players, why not make the third umpire independent rather than subordinate to the field umpires? He could then review decisions without waiting for the field umpires to consult him and he could correct wrong ones. Of course, he should not take any action against marginally wrong decisions(like less than half the ball hitting leg stump or where the camera is not at the right angle). He could take how much ever time he wants to review decisions and the game can progress in the meantime. If the field umpire's decision was wrong, then the balls would have to be replayed(this is preferable to the game being held up).

Posted by spiritwithin on (August 14 2010, 07:46 AM GMT)

@Chris_P..so australians play tough and does'nt complain??hmmm,lemme check,last time ponting started complaining when some UDRS decisions were not in favor of australia,australians were always a bad losers and their on-field behaviour is a testamony to da fact,they lose their temper when opposition confronts them(sarwan-mcgrath,symonds-harbhajan,watson-benn etc r jus few examples),not to forget SL even once rejected to tour australia for biased nature of australian umpires and for da racial abuses by spectators,though even WI,SA,india,pakistan SL also had faced racial abuse by aussie spectators...u r in no position to question indian fans

Posted by hattrick_thug on (August 14 2010, 04:44 AM GMT)

Here's a radical thought. Why not get rid of lbw's altogether in T20s and ODI's? It's not like pads can score runs. The only place for the use of pads is when a team is trying to draw a Test match, and this would be an encouragement for the fields to be brought in, leading to even more attacking fielding/bowling, which we have sorely lacked in Tests. Every HawkEye replay that's clipping leg-stump by 2 millimeters and the corresponding howls of derision for the umpire is yet another illustration of false accuracy. You can calculate the value of pi using 22/7, and you won't get more accurate as you drum up more decimal places of "precision". If the effort were directed at merely reducing umpiring howlers, a straight multi-angle video feed and replay should be able to deal with the problem.

Posted by Chris_P on (August 13 2010, 22:54 PM GMT)

You iknow, it really grates me when I continually read about the whining of some (SOME!) Indian fans about the tough decisions their players get. Wake up and smell the coffee!! I am absolutely certain these people have not played organized cricket for then they would truly realize how difficult it is to umpire. Do you ever, EVER read many Aussies, Kiwis, or Sth Africans complaining? No, and the reason is that we all played this game tough, hard and ACCEPT the umpire's decions, good or bad. I am sick of readiog about the last series in Australia in Sydney, the next test in Perth, India copped 4 decisions in their favour when they should have been speared, what about commenting on that then? The reason we don't is that we accept it is part of the game. Grow up and add some dimension to your thought processes and try, to play a game of organized cricket to get a true perspective.

Posted by McGorium on (August 13 2010, 19:49 PM GMT)

@Pranav Kindambi: Hawk-eye considers the pitch and stuff, as I understand it. It tracks the ball right until it hits the pad (so that's considered). The predictive part comes after that, and can be easily modeled using high-school physics and/or mathematics. Methodologically, hawk-eye is sound (I trust the implementation is equally sound too). BillyCC is right though... If UDRS is used only to overturn glaring errors (like nick vs no nick, ball pitching outside leg, no bat in the bat-pad appeal etc), hawk-eye is pointless. (It's useful to replace the umpire entirely, but rarely to correct the ump. Perhaps Sachin's shoulder-before-wicket might be a decent candidate for Hawk-eye to fix, but I'd think a 3rd umpire watching replays would arrive at the same conclusion)

Posted by cric4india on (August 13 2010, 18:57 PM GMT)

@Suranga: Ya right,you mean decisions favoring SL by 'correct decisions'! Go get a life!

Posted by JAM123 on (August 13 2010, 15:43 PM GMT)

If the system is so accurate or best possible thing. Why even have Referral ? Shouldn't it be automatic referral for every decision ? There is a lot of time when batsman goes out and new batsman comes in. We can easily test/verify/prove its accuracy and give a percentage of accurate decisions. Take a trajectory of balls on various pitches low bounce/high bounce/countries/climate (sample should be around at least as big 5,000 balls per pitch) at various times (day/night), various stages (first day, second day etc/ morning/evening etc). Let the system predict it and publish data. I don't trust the accuracy of this tool as it does not show any margin of uncertainty. I dont believe the inventor claim its very small either. Because they don't publish their test data and errata. No inventor ever claimed his invention is wrong. Data should do talking. In Technology world, every new technology gets certified for accuracy and other reason. Is there a body that they have certified it with ?

Posted by mrgupta on (August 13 2010, 14:43 PM GMT)

@Suranga Silva: Check the stats of all your favorite SL players outside ASIA and then comment on anybody else. Even on 1 to 1 none SL players barring maybe Sanga can come close to the performances Indians have given overseas in the last decade. How many SL players average 45+ outside ASIA? Dilshan, Jayaw'dene and Samaraweera all have mediocre batting averages outside Asia (less than 40).None of the SL batsmen barring Sanga comes even close to Sehwag, Laxman or Gambhir in terms of batting outside Asia let alone comparing to Sachin or Dravid. Sachin and Dravid who have 50+ avg outside Asia and are among the all time best when talking out performers away from home. SL is good for beating only BD and Zim or maybe the weaker teams like WI. Indians have scored huge scores on some very tricky pitches and have beaten all teams in Tests in their home in the last few years.

Posted by BillyCC on (August 13 2010, 13:45 PM GMT)

I am not a fan of Hawkeye. I believe it is actually redundant in the current form of the UDRS. The current UDRS is only meant to get rid of glaring umpiring errors. Balls pitching outside leg stump, balls hitting outside off stump whilst playing a shot, big nicks given not out, batsmen missing the ball given out are by far the most common. Hawkeye is not involved in any of these dismissals. It only comes in when everything is in line and the trajectory (both height and line) is in question. And in most cases, Hawkeye follows the view of the umpire unless the umpire has made a glaring error of judgment in height and line. Otherwise, very few decisions are overturned by Hawkeye. For a piece of technology where the inventor raves on about small margins of error, it is quite useless if the UDRS doesn't care about small margins, only big margins of error.