On-field umpire must have final say

When a business invests in new technology to better sales, it does not introduce it as a "Sales Decisions Review System" and have its salesmen second-guessing themselves. Hospitals don't use technology to review a doctor's decisions. Banks don't invest in software to review a loan underwriter's decisions. All of them introduce technology as tools to empower their work force. They introduce technology as tools that enable salesmen, doctors and bankers to do their jobs better. To reduce errors. To make them better salesmen, doctors and bankers.

Technology is rarely introduced to review and then overturn a decision made by experts. Why then is cricket, where the umpire's decision is considered to be final, positioning and deploying technology as a "review" of the umpire's decisions? Much has been made of the BCCI's opposition to the UDRS, but all of it is due to its funding. Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni, too, have spoken against it but their arguments miss what I think is fundamentally flawed about the UDRS. It isn't about the technology and the need for it to be foolproof. It’s about empowering the on-field umpire with the data; images, sounds, heat patterns, etc; available to "off-field" umpires and millions of viewers and then allowing him to make a decision.

The process of challenge followed by a referral to an "off-field" umpire and a final decision by the "off-field" umpire undermines the authority of the on-field umpire. It’s also distasteful. If players are expected to regard the on-field umpire as the ultimate authority, then the on-field umpire needs to always be in complete control of the game and make the big decisions. And if he needs data captured by the tools; hot spot, ball tracker, snick-o-meter, etc, he needs to be provided access to it. When a fielding side appeals, the on-field umpire should be the exclusive person to determine the process of decision-making, the tools to involve or not involve, and ultimately deliver the decision.

If the players do not like the decision; there should be no challenges, no one else to go to. The problem now becomes how to instantly deploy the data to the on-field umpire. How difficult can that be? Today I get all the data on my iPhone thousands of miles away. The umpire is only a few yards from where the data is located. The underlying technologies in the UDRS will likely evolve to be more accurate but the process of delivery of decisions is flawed. That process needed to protect the on-field umpire’s authority and it's failed in that regard.