Missing the action despite the technology

Giles Smith, writing in The Times, on the Pietersen - Gayle exchange in the first Test at Lord's and how technology, including the newly launched Hot Spot, has let us down.

In the absence of big controversies, Hot Spot was used mostly to demonstrate that Kevin Pietersen had again found “the meat of the bat” – a conclusion that most of us were able to reach in advance using nothing more high-tech than the evidence of our eyes as the ball once more headed for the boundary.

More significantly, though, Pietersen also appeared to become involved in an extended and highly colourful conversation – about cricket and other related matters, we feel sure – with Chris Gayle at slip.

And here again, the technology let us down. The microphones in the middle were turned down and we were left with the frustratingly incomplete account of the exchanges supplied by our lip-reading.