South Africa: Gremlins ruins TV debut (8 October 1998)

8 October 1998

South Africa: Gremlins ruins TV debut

By Trevor Chesterfield

BENONI - Karl Hurter, the third umpire sitting in the squat shed next to the scoreboard, could hardly believe his television screen let alone what he was unable to hear.

Keith Forde was about to become an interesting statistic: the first batsman in the history of the game to be ruled out under the UCB's "extension of television replays for judging catches and lbw decisions". But Hurter, a member of the national panel, was unable to make a decision involving the KwaZulu/Natal wicketkeeper-batsman at Willowmoore Park.

The prying eye of the camera work gave the impression there was a definite nick from Forde to Easterns wicketkeeper Ivan Pistorius, but there was no sound to help Hurter make up his mind in the third over of the Standard Bank League game. The umpire was Nic Pretorius and the bowler Andre Nel. While Nel and Pistorius were certain Pretorius was not and asked for a re-run of the incident.

From their "eye in the sky" the TV commentators smirked behind their mikes and those at home watching viewed the incident with some amusement. To them Forde would have gone down as the first batsman to be dismissed c Pistorius b Nel (TV decision) 6.

For the sweating Hurter it wasn't so clear cut. It also made nonsense of the confident claims made barely a week before when Brian Basson, director of umpiring in South Africa, said that batsmen, who knew they touched the ball would "walk" instead of hanging around waiting for a TV replay to highlight the obvious.

"We have to ask ourselves just how far we can go with the technology available. There is the view of giving the batsman the benefit of the doubt, but in the case of difficult catches this is often unfair to the fielding side," Basson added. "The umpire out in the middle is asking for a second opinion and he is calling on his colleague to confirm that opinion."

Only there were technical problems when the television sound failed when there were several replays of Forde being caught behind .Not at all what the extension by TV replays was designed to do. So, with no sound the third umpire Hurter, declined to give the decision based on the evidence he had.

In terms of the two-way radio communication it wasn't quite in the Macaroni League either: " ... Um, umpire two, umpire three here ... Hmmm, in reply to your question, I can't tell you old boy. Lost the sound this side. Roger and not out ..."

Naturally Pistorius and other Easterns players were wondering, after all the fuss of a few days before, whether indeed the age of technology, designed to make the game run more smoothly, was meant to really work.

After all, being bugged by gremlins was the sort of teething problems you would expect from a eighth-month-old baby and not a state of the art, hi-tech system designed to end niggling indecision.

It was all highly embarrassing.

Just as had been the positioning of the cameras at Fochville when neither umpire, Danny Becker nor Rudi Koertzen could remotely rule on anything other than what they saw.

Perhaps it might be an idea to introduce an amber light to "clear up any misunderstandings" with the TV umpire saying by the walkie-talkies, "haven't the foggiest, old boy."

Source :: Trevor Chesterfield, Pretoria News