Contentious decisions, UDRS, Wambulance Thread.

[centurymaker]

Cricinfo

Ashton Agar, Trent Bridge: Agar, a 19-year-old debutant, appeared stumped on 6 but third umpire Marais Erasmus ruled in his favour and he went on to make 98 - the highest score by a Test match No 11.

Jonathan Trott, Trent Bridge: Trott's second innings golden duck was fraught with controversy. He was given not out by on-field umpire Aleem Dar, but Erasmus, the third umpire, adjudged him lbw even though HotSpot was unavailable because of operational error.

Stuart Broad, Trent Bridge: Broad stood his ground after a thick edge against the left-arm spinner, Agar, went off the keeper's gloves to Michael Clarke at slip only for Dar to rule not out. As Australia had used up all their reviews, they had to suffer it.

Ian Bell, Lord's: Bell was on 3 when Steven Smith claimed a low catch at gully. The on-field umpires passed the decision onto third umpire Tony Hill and because of the foreshortening caused by a long lens, he controversially ruled in the batsman's favour.

Usman Khawaja, Old Trafford: Khawaja reviewed when he was given out for a single by Hill, the on-field umpire, caught behind off Swann. DRS revealed nothing to justify Hill's decision, yet the third umpire, Kumar Dharmasena, deemed the evidence "inconclusive".

Steven Smith, Old Trafford: Having survived two England reviews, Smith was plumb lbw on 24 to Broad only for Hill to rule not out. Now it was England's turn to be frustrated, having used both their reviews.

 

[M0rphin3]

Does anyone have any rational explanation as for how the **** that was overturned? This is as close to being conclusive as it gets to overturn a decision - he missed it by a ****ing mile without even hotspot or multiple camera angles. Unless it's drunk chimp on crack watching the replay, I have no idea how that could possibly have not been overturned.

I'm pretty much open to conspiracy theories now - it's that bad.

 

[Flametree]

The more I think about it, the less the "half the ball hitting" makes sense to me. For example...

case a) batsman makes a big stride forward. Is hit in front, ball swinging leg-side-ish. With nearly three metres to travel, ball is shown to be clipping leg on Hawkeye's best prediction. Umpire gives it out/not-out, and on review the decision stands on umpire's call basis.

case b) offspinner to right-hander. Right-hander goes back and misses it. Ball shown to be 45% hitting leg stump. Umpire gives it out/not-out and on review the decision stands on umpire's call basis.

The umpire's call reasoning is to allow for a margin of error in Hawkeye's predictions. But I just don't think those two cases are similar. In the former, there must be some area of doubt where the ball will end up based on the fact that 3 metres is about 1/7th of the full distance the ball will travel. On the latter, with the ball having only 18 inches to travel, surely the margin for error is much less. But if the umpire gives them both not out, they stay not out, even though the second case seems stupid since we can all see the ball is cannoning right into the stumps - even if less than half the ball is suggested to be hitting, the chances that NO part of the ball is hitting any part of the stump is so low that surely a different rule is needed.

Of course the alternative view is that we want the onfield umpires to make good decisions, so that the umpire's calls are used to support good decisions, not to uphold the rank guesses....

 

[Furball]

But umpire's call upholds the rank guesses if the umpire gives the batsman out.

 

[Riggins]

at the end of the day, the margin of error for hawkeye is going to be smaller than for the umpires guess of where the ball is going. yes it's not perfect but the umpires split second opinion is demonstrably worse. the ball is either hitting the stumps or its not, they need to **** the umpires call system right off. don't care if they decide whole ball/half ball impact or whatever, just make it consistent.

 

[Maximas]

I always wonder why cricket can't have the tennis system (different rules I know), they trust the technology, and there is no grey area, it works well.

 

[Furball]

I can't stand the fact that there's umpire's call for whether a player's been hit in line.

 

[burr]

Some interesting things popped up on the Guardian blog for yesterday surrounding the DRS process:





Based on that, it looks like the primary issue is that Tony Hill is absolutely hopeless. I think life would be so much better if they just did what rugby does and let us listen in on the communication between the umpires.

Hmm, that's extremely interesting. I had no idea the decision still remained with the onfield umpire and the third umpire's role is essentially one of information provision. I don't really understand that though as the third umpire is the one sitting in front of the TV, and therefore is surely the best person to maintain or overturn the original decision.

 

[Daemon]

at the end of the day, the margin of error for hawkeye is going to be smaller than for the umpires guess of where the ball is going. yes it's not perfect but the umpires split second opinion is demonstrably worse. the ball is either hitting the stumps or its not, they need to **** the umpires call system right off. don't care if they decide whole ball/half ball impact or whatever, just make it consistent.

10 minute opinion even moreso

 

[Adders]

Does anyone have any rational explanation as for how the **** that was overturned? This is as close to being conclusive as it gets to overturn a decision - he missed it by a ****ing mile without even hotspot or multiple camera angles. Unless it's drunk chimp on crack watching the replay, I have no idea how that could possibly have not been overturned.

I'm pretty much open to conspiracy theories now - it's that bad.

I assume you mean wasn't overturned?

It isn't right but I understand exactly why it happened..........because the on field umpire gave it out the 3rd umpire had to have 100% conclusive evidence to overturn him.

No Hotspot - is not 100% conclusive evidence that he didn't hit.

Slo mo - is a 2 dimensional picture, just like the Bell catch by Smith in the last test......the umpires don't trust it enough to say it is 100% conclusive evidence that there was air between bat and ball.

I was pretty raged about it last night but now that I have actually calmed down and thought about it......I actually feel sorry for Dharmasena now. He is being held responsible for it when in fact I think the finger should be pointed firmly at the ICC. There isn't a person with eyes and a brain that watched that last night who would think Khawaja hit it.....and that must include Dharmasena, the problem is I don't think the 3rd umpires are given license to use common sense and intelligence. He could only go by the guidelines he's got on how to read that evidence.

Even though blind freddy knew he wasn't out the tools they have aren't enough unless they can use some good old fashioned human common sense.......and I don't think they are allowed to.

 

[morgieb]

I always wonder why cricket can't have the tennis system (different rules I know), they trust the technology, and there is no grey area, it works well.

I suppose the difference is they are tracking a known event, whereas in cricket they're making predictions on where it will go based on how it traveled (this is for HawkEye btw).

Also, there are more referrals/challenges in tennis than cricket, so perhaps the way they are implementing it is different.

 

[morgieb]

Does anyone have any rational explanation as for how the **** that was overturned? This is as close to being conclusive as it gets to overturn a decision - he missed it by a ****ing mile without even hotspot or multiple camera angles. Unless it's drunk chimp on crack watching the replay, I have no idea how that could possibly have not been overturned.

I'm pretty much open to conspiracy theories now - it's that bad.

The only reason why it wasn't overturned was sound. Turns out the sound was after the ball past the bat.

 

[Howe_zat]

I always wonder why cricket can't have the tennis system (different rules I know), they trust the technology, and there is no grey area, it works well.

I suppose the difference is they are tracking a known event, whereas in cricket they're making predictions on where it will go based on how it traveled (this is for HawkEye btw).

Yeah pretty much. Interpolation is always going to be more reliable than extrapolation.

 

[Riggins]

yeah but the computer's extrapolation is still almost always more accurate than the umpire's own extrapolation. which is what annoys me.

 

[Howe_zat]

Would agree with that too.

 

[GIMH]

I can't stand the fact that there's umpire's call for whether a player's been hit in line.

Yeah doesn't seem any logic behind that

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

I'm pretty much open to conspiracy theories now - it's that bad.

Clearly the BCCI bribed Dharmasena to make the DRS system look bad in order to support their anti-DRS agenda. It's all clear to me now!

 

[Daemon]

Clearly the BCCI bribed Dharmasena to make the DRS system look bad in order to support their anti-DRS agenda. It's all clear to me now!

beat you to this in the cricsim thread

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Looking forward to the remaining 7 matches with these clowns in charge.

 

[Cabinet96]

I think a few people nailed the umpires call thing yesterday. It's there to keep with old time theories that have since been disproved, and not actually because hawkeye is unpredictable. That needs to stop, and they have to start creating an umpires call system where it actually uses margins of error to calculate an umpires call system. I.e. the umpires call zone is larger the further forward a batsman is, and the less tv cameras there are etc.