CMJ: Technology lights the way as ICC look to the future (15 July 1997)

Tuesday 15 July 1997

Technology lights the way as ICC look to the future

Christopher Martin-Jenkins.

TWO radical concessions to modern technology have been announced, permitting floodlights to be used for Test cricket when bad light threatens play and - from September onwards - third umpires to rule in cases where umpires on the field cannot agree whether or not a catch has been taken cleanly.

The decision of the International Cricket Council followed the weekend meetings of Test captains and the council`s new cricket committee. It was significant, no doubt, that the two London meetings came so soon after the incidents during the third Test at Old Trafford the previous weekend.

Greg Blewett, of Australia, was given out caught by Nasser Hussain off Robert Croft at slip, though television re- plays seemed to suggest from certain angles that the ball had touched the ground a fraction of a second before Hussain fin- gertipped it upwards and caught it one-handed on the rebound.

In England`s second innings Mark Ealham left the crease uncertain whether his edge had carried to Ian Healy. Television viewers were told that it had but the fairness of the Hussain catch was in greater doubt.

Hussain believed it was legitimate and, in any case, cameras can sometimes deceive. George Sharp, the square-leg umpire, ruled that it was a fair catch after the umpire at the bowler`s end, Srini Venkataraghavan, had consulted him. After September, umpires in a similar quandary will consult their colleague with the television monitor.

Thus Pandora`s Box - first opened to allow umpires on the field to consult on stumpings and run-outs, then on whether the ball has crossed the boundary line - has released another of its almost unlimited contents. Next, as sure the earth is round, will come suggestions that umpires should be allowed to consult on whether bat/pad appeals should be upheld. Little touches on the gloves, so hard to discern by the umpire, often imagined by the bowler and surrounding fielders, are the hardest of all on which to give instant decisions. Recourse to television replays, however, would mean that the verdicts would be anything but instant.

Once batsmen stopped walking when they knew they were out, and the slow motion television replay came into being, there was a certain inevitability to this process and the same is true of floodlights.

South Africa first introduced third umpires and it is Dr Ali Bacher who has again taken the initiative on using floodlights to counteract bad light. On the face of it, this is plain common sense: if artificial light can keep play going during the scheduled hours of play, why not use it?

Again, this could prove to be the thin end of the wedge. David Richards, the ICC`s chief executive, said yesterday that "the use of lights will have to be agreed by both sides before a series starts and hours of play will not be altered to allow day/night Test cricket".

Ominously, he added that the position would be reviewed at the annual conference next June. We are possibly only a year away from day/night Tests.

The cricket committee endorsed the captains` view that the maximum of two bouncers per over has worked well and it will therefore be a condition for Test cricket for an indefinite period. This is better than a policy of laissez-faire but my doubts continue: on some pitches, where peppering the batsmen with short stuff is likely to be profitable, the bowlers are licensed to deliver 180 bumpers out of the 540 balls they must bowl in a day.

In practice, the great majority will be hit by batsmen only at great risk to his wicket or to his person. To give but one instance, this rule is about to bring a premature end to the Test career of a richly talented batsman, Michael Bevan.

Other decisions taken by the cricket committee were that all international venues must have at least one absorbent roller to hasten play after heavy rain - a stipulation which is long overdue - and that teams will not be fined for slow over-rates if they have dismissed their opposition in fewer than 50 overs in a Test or fewer than 35 in a one-day international.

This, said Richards, "recognises the difficulty of meeting the average of 15 overs per hour with only fast bowlers in operation through such short innings, and because of the fall of wickets".

In future the Test captains will meet every year, starting in England next June. They hope by then to have pushed administrators into a voluntary agreement than no coun- try will play more than "10 to 12 Tests and 25 to 30 one-day internationals" in one year.

They also want an eight-week (not simultaneous) break for every country and they have urged the ICC to tackle a general decline in the standard of Test pitches throughout the world.

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/)