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The LBW Umpire Referral Flaw

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
A law has to be uniform. For instance, always, LBW has meant a decision of out given when the umpire deems the ball will hit the stumps.

However, when the referal is made, the uniformity of the law ends. If it clips, and the umpire had initially ruled it out, it remains out. However, if it clips, when the umpire had initially ruled not out, it remains not out. The decision made should be based on evidence and regardless of what the on field umpire had ruled earlier.

The current procedure isn't correct imo.
 

weldone

Hall of Fame Member
I think the 'benefit of doubt to the batsman' thing should be ingrained into the referral system.

Right now, it's just 'benefit of doubt to the umpire'.
 
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Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
The whole referral system irritates me. I'd love to see some stats on referrals and how many times umpires have got things wrong and have been shown to be wrong. Read somewhere the other day that international umpires are declining in their decision making skills a year or so after they reach international level because of technology use at that level.

But agree with your points. Once it's reviewed, if it's gonna hit the stumps according to the technology, it should be out. I'm assuming that the current rule is because they don't trust the technology as 100% accurate.
 

Daemon

Request Your Custom Title Now!
How do they assess their decision making skills before and after they reach international standard?
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
How do they assess their decision making skills before and after they reach international standard?
I can't remember where I read it, but i think the point was that once umpires reach international level they have 12-18 mths where their decisions are great (as they've honed them coming up thru the levels) but they decline after that initial time due to reliance on technology and less reliance on decision skills.

Wish I could remember where I read it. Thought it was in CW somewhere.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
It is not a flaw - it is a part of the system.

The predictive element isn't 100% so they have to build some leeway in there. That leeway means that if it falls within those margins, the umpire has not been proven to be incorrect (which is the whole idea of the review) and as such the review is wrong and the lost.

It's not rocket science.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
Yeah I had some sympathy for teams initially, but they should have learned by now that marginal decisions aren't being overturned -- the review is only for absolutely atrocious decisions. Umpire's Call is the most overstated thing in cricket IMO; just don't gamble away your review, ****s. If you don't get hit with a howler of a decision, don't feel like you have to spend the review.
 

weldone

Hall of Fame Member
When you have moved to the review, forget the umpire's decision. The game of cricket is not being played for the umpires; their initial decision shouldn't matter at all when a decision has been taken to use technology. Given the review system isn't 100% accurate, when there is a doubt give the benefit to the batsman because batsman doesn't get a 2nd chance but a bowler/fielder does (that's the main reason behind the entire benefit of the doubt to the batsman thing at the first place).

Another way to look at it is when umpire has given out he is very sure about it (if he's not not sure he'd give benfit of the doubt to the batsman). Now, if technology shows that there's reasonable ground for doubt, that means umpire shouldn't have been so sure at the first place. So, umpire was wrong thinking there was no doubt. There IS in fact reasonable amount of doubt. Now, give the benefit to the batsman.

That's how it should work IMO.
 

Howe_zat

Audio File
I think the 'benefit of doubt to the batsman' thing should be ingrained into the referral system.

Right now, it's just 'benefit of doubt to the umpire'.
It does have benefit of the doubt to the batsman. The 'umpire's call' verdict is only given when the ball is hitting the stumps, which would be out according to the laws.

Currently, if the middle of the ball is hitting the middle of off stump, it can be given not out. But if the ball is a millimetre away from the stumps, it can't be given out.
 

Furball

Evil Scotsman
Yeah I had some sympathy for teams initially, but they should have learned by now that marginal decisions aren't being overturned -- the review is only for absolutely atrocious decisions. Umpire's Call is the most overstated thing in cricket IMO; just don't gamble away your review, ****s. If you don't get hit with a howler of a decision, don't feel like you have to spend the review.
How are you gambling with your reviews if you review a decision where you think the ball is hitting the stumps and HawkEye agrees?
 

Shady Slim

International Coach
-change it to getting the review back on an Ump's Call
-maybe change the percent for an Ump's Call to 25%/75% or 40%/60% (so if it is hitting more than 25-40 percent it is out, this is an easy to judge thing as hawkeye can just draw an imaginary line on the ball)
-get rid of plodders like kettleborough
-make erasmus the umpire for all tests
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
How are you gambling with your reviews if you review a decision where you think the ball is hitting the stumps and HawkEye agrees?
It's not like it's some massive secret that Umpire's Call exists.

I mean, how many times have we been in match threads and successfully predicted "oooh that looks close, I reckon it's Umpire's Call".

If ****s like Stuart Broad didn't act as if every umpire was out to screw them and reviewed every single marginal shout ever, and instead accepted that umpires get the decisions right the extreme majority of the time and hence used the review as it was intended -- a safeguard for an epic **** up -- then we wouldn't have this issue in the first place.

The speculative use of reviews on marginal decisions is something I have zero sympathy for these days. If you're trying to use it to gain an advantage, rather than to correct an actual error, then you deserve to be burned by Umpire's Call semi-regularly.
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
Should the umpire's call be that relevant once it is referred though? Isn't hawk eye pretty reliable.. Once it is referred, it has to be uniform. Make it not out for 25% clipping if that's has to be it.
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
I am reminded of not outs here right now. Before the third umpire came into play for not outs, it was always umpire's call. So they gave it not out most of the time. However, it was clear afterwards it's out for close decisions which were given not out before. The umpire's call became a non factor eventually for run outs. I understand hawk eye can't predict 100% accurately but one has to go by some thing.. I would be pretty aggrieved if I was the bowler, it was clearly clipping the wickets in my mind, shows it's the case by hawk eye, but gets given not out as the umpire had initially given not out, say.
 

marc71178

Eyes not spreadsheets
The whole point of the current umpires call scenario is that that is how accurate hawkeye is. Can't change it to 25% or something just because you feel like it.

As I said earlier, the review system is there to stop howlers, which can be clearly proven to be wrong. If hawkeye shows umpires call then clearly the umpires decision is not proven to be wrong so the review has failed, end of story.
 

Red

The normal awards that everyone else has
This is from 2011, but...

DRS in World Cup 2011: What the numbers say | Cricket Features | ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 | ESPN Cricinfo

Even in its current form, the system has helped: apart from reducing the errors, it has also helped reduce the rancour on the field as it does away with the sense of perceived injustice. For the purposes of this article, though, let's just look at the numbers in terms of the decision-making.

The success rate of 28.13% means a little more than one out of every four decisions reviewed goes in favour of the team which asks for the review. That isn't a very high number, considering the fact that you'd expect a team to exercise that option only when they're fairly sure they've been wronged, but often teams have gone for that option out of sheer desperation, or when they have nothing to lose.

This also means the on-field umpire has got it right 71.87% of the time, which is a reasonable percentage considering these are usually marginal decisions. Due to the imperfect technology, more than one incorrect decision hasn't been corrected despite the replays, but overall these numbers offer an idea of how the system has been used so far.
 

Daemon

Request Your Custom Title Now!
7/10 correct decisions isn't great tbf. Taking a wild guess here but about 5 of those will be straightforward and out of the other 5 they're getting 3 wrong. Unless of course they're only using the marginal decisions to come up with that number.
 

Dan

Hall of Fame Member
7/10 correct decisions isn't great tbf. Taking a wild guess here but about 5 of those will be straightforward and out of the other 5 they're getting 3 wrong. Unless of course they're only using the marginal decisions to come up with that number.
7/10 of reviewed decisions. So if ~70% of your 'wrong' decisions are actually right, you're not doing too badly. Especially since ~99% of all other decisions you've got correct (since they haven't been challenged, you're more than likely getting them right).
 

cnerd123

likes this
7/10 correct decisions isn't great tbf. Taking a wild guess here but about 5 of those will be straightforward and out of the other 5 they're getting 3 wrong. Unless of course they're only using the marginal decisions to come up with that number.
Out of 10 times they use the review system, 7 stand.

To me this means they're using it mostly on marginal decision (which appear 50/50) and less so on glaring errors.

Probably around 10% overturned are from glaring errors, and 20% from the marginal ones, with 70% being marginal ones that stand due to the Umpires being correct, or due to Umpire's Call.
 

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