Rethinking the referral system

From Gopal Rangachary, India

Now that the Ashes are over, the post-mortems have begun. Shots have been fired at Ricky Ponting, Andrew Hilditch, the Oval groundsman and not least the standard of umpiring in this series. By any measure, it was embarrassing. Rudi Koertzen and Asad Rauf were poor, Billy Doctrove average, and Billy Bowden had a good series at the business end of the pitch , after a first ball shocker at Leeds, but seems to have missed several wickets off no-balls.

The umpiring incompetence has spurred a familiar debate- the use of technology. Sometimes that debate seems as polarized as a Michael Moore v Dick Cheney debate on healthcare. The supporters of technology fumed when Marcus North got a shocker at The Oval, while the opponents like Michael Holding made dark predictions of two-day tests if Hawkeye was adopted as the gold standard.

Having watched the referral system on trial during the India v Sri Lanka and West Indies v England Test series, I was mighty relieved to hear that the Ashes wouldn’t be subject to that experiment. That's a curious response, isn’t it? I am a strong believer in getting the decisions right. Consider this - Jonathan Trott appeared to be caught-behind off the first ball of the third day. The ball actually clipped his pad - clear on the replay- and Asad Rauf made a good decision. He could have easily missed that - and instead of contacting travel agents to plan his South African homecoming, Trott could have joined Alan Wells as the answer to a cricket trivia contest for cricket tragics (as players who played their only Test at The Oval ).

Rewind to the first Test between India and Sri Lanka at the SSC in Colombo- Virender Sehwag offers no shot to a ball from Muttiah Muralitharan that seems to have clearly pitched outside leg stump. Sri Lanka call for the review. Ian Bishop says: “That’s pitched outside the leg stump. Not Out will be the verdict". Lo and behold, we get the animations, and the graphics. Suddenly to the disbelief of all of us watching, we are informed that 10% of the ball was line with the leg stump. Out was the verdict.

Forward to Jamaica. Tony Hill gives Ramnaresh Sarwan out lbw, Sarwan calls for the review – replays indicate that it probably struck him high, Daryl Harper reverses the decision, Hawkeye then indicates the ball would have hit the top of leg stump. No wonder I was relieved we wouldn’t have this comedy being enacted in the Ashes.

The other side of the coin though, was when KP was given out to a ball pitching two feet outside the leg stump in he fourth Test between the teams in Barbados – a dreadful decision from Russell Tiffin. Even Harper got that one right by reversing it. So, you needed the Tiffins and the Asoka De Silvas to vindicate the referral system.

A decent referral system needs to address the following. Firstly, adjudicate only on the clear errors, and not on the marginal ones. Secondly, avoid the time lost gazing at the screen and the "tactical reviews"- where Monty Panesar asks for a referral for a stone cold lbw simply because the team has a referral left. The way to go about it, though I suspect the ICC isn’t waiting with bated breath, is this. Firstly, eliminate Hawkeye in its entirety. Get rid of the animations, the "mat", the random data - " ball pitched 2.5 feet in front of the crease" – etc. Don’t use Snicko and don’t use Hot Spot. If a decision cannot be clearly seen to be wrong on normal slow-motion replay, it doesn’t deserve to be reversed. Each of the Ashes stinkers- Michael Hussey and Ricky Ponting at Lords, Ravi Bopara at Leeds, Marcus North and Stuart Clark at The Oval , Ian Bell’s not outs at Edgbaston, Shane Watson's lbw not given at The Oval , Billy Bowden's non-decision on the first ball at Leeds - would have evidently been reversed on a simple slow motion replay. We didn’t need any of the complicated, obfuscating technology. This would ensure that only the more clear-cut wrong decisions would be reversed, and that the third umpire would have access really to the same faculties that the on-field umpires and, most importantly, the players have. The players don’t have a mat showing where the leg stump is, why should the third umpire? Cricket is not 100m racing, archery or shooting. It shouldn’t be a game of millimetres.

Also, forget the three referrals each innings per team. Let every team be allowed six referrals (unsuccessful) per match. They could use them when they bat or bowl, and in any innings. Also, the number of unsuccessful appeals should be tallied against the captains and an appropriate penalty system introduced. These measures (even just the first, and forget the one dealing with the captains) would reduce the number of frivolous or tactical references.

Some commentators talk about their discomfort with players referring decisions, and they would rather have the umpires make the call. That would be disastrous, and I would imagine we may have every serious appeal being referred. The problem is compounded with the predictive aspect of Hawk Eye. At the Oval , we occasionally saw batsmen kick away balls turning in, two feet away from the off stump. Each time it happened, the commentators would mutter: “The Umpire would be guessing. He can’t give that out.” With Hawkeye - if it shows the ball brushing the outside of off, the umpire, with the referral system in place, will be obliged to. Is that really good for the game?