Contentious decisions, UDRS, Wambulance Thread.

[grecian]

Anyway don't the Indians have the catches review system?

TBH, I'm not sure any decisions would have been different in this match then in an Indian Test Match.

You can cite the nonsense about the umps being nervous about the Tech, but the fact is Sky aren't going to stop showing Hawkeye and other ways of making cricket clearer to the viewers, so you're not going to go back to those times when the ump wouldn't be pressurised.

 

[91Jmay]

Well over these last 2 tests I've finally lost what little confidence I had left in the muppets interpretating the technology. The DRS has just lost all credibility now.

India were right, lets go back to the on field umpires doing what they are paid to do.........gotta be better than holding up the game, using incredibly expensive technology and still getting it ****ing wrong.

'Australia are 4-69. If there was no DRS they would be 4-69. Not sure how technology can ruin a game when it's had no material effect #Ashes' - @brydoncoverdale

Get a fresh set of undies and have a rethink. Its had very little effect on the series.

 

[Furball]

Just seeing the incident for the first time, how on earth the umpire gave Bell not out is beyond me.

 

[morgieb]

If the on-field umpire calls for third umpire intervention they should do what the NRL does and make a call on what they think is out and is not out, and make the third umpire prove them wrong. Hopefully should stop calls like the Bell catch last night.

 

[Adders]

Get a fresh set of undies and have a rethink. Its had very little effect on the series.

You can disagree with my view and I'm well aware it's is going well against the grain but you can not say it has had little effect on this series.......Agar should have been out on 6 and made 98, Bell should have been out on 3 and made 75 just for starters.

Now firstly I realise that neither of those examples were DRS reviews, but they still went to the third umpire and this is where my growing frustrations are.......with the incompetency of these umpires to utilise the technology and return correct verdicts. If a decision goes up stairs and the evidence is clear then I want the correct call coming back 100% of the time, no **** ups so there is no whingeing and no controversies after the event. 50/50 calls where they stay with the on field ump I can accept.

This is just my opinion and I don't expect many to agree with it but I was never an umpire or poor decision whinger pre DRS........to me it was a part of the game and when you copped a bad one you just accepted it and moved on. When something goes upstairs and you still cop a bad one that is 100 time worse and a far more bitter pill to swallow. And the worst part is that DRS has done nothing to stop the whingeing and controversies..........I reckon we have more of it now!!

I just don't understand how they are getting so many of these wrong and if we are keeping the DRS (which obviously we are) then they need to get if fixed and it needs to be done straight away.

 

[91Jmay]

Yeah but those two examples you gave would have happened Pre-DRS, so what is your solution? To remove any technology for the game at all and have umpires deciding on stumpings and run outs again? That is literally the only way the Agar thing can have been any different.

 

[morgieb]

Yeah, the Agar and Bell things have nothing to do with UDRS.

But it also shows that if umpires refer something they need to make judgements about it so BOTD doesn't just go with the batsman.

 

[Furball]

Leg stump lbws need looked at urgently.

I can't believe Hughes would have stayed in if Dharmasena hadn't given that.

 

[Spark]

I really don't understand where you've got this idea that leg stump and off stump are treated differently under UDRS from...

 

[Furball]

In fairness it's a while since I've seen a 'borderline' off stump lbw review. I can't remember seeing many umpire's calls that weren't just shaving as opposed to smashing off stump out the ground.

 

[91Jmay]

Rogers being LBW, Steve Smith no catch, Agar being overturned and Haddin being out. Four bad decisions - England got the rub of the green in this one, no doubt.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Agar decision wasn't really "bad" IMO it was just an example of the DRS system being really weirdly inconsistent and incomprehensible to viewers and players. It was given not out on the field, hotspot showed no edge and it was still overturned even though in the past no hotspot has been taken as conclusive evidence of a lack of edge.

I think the right decision was made in the end but there needs to be a lot more clarity about exactly where the benefit of the doubt is meant to lie and what criteria are used to make overrules.

 

[Furball]

Hotspot stopped being definitive proof around about the England v India series in 2011 where umpires were told to use the audio from the stump mics as well. Dravid got a couple of decisions in the ODI series where the decision was overturned despite no hotspot mark.

 

[Spark]

In fairness it's a while since I've seen a 'borderline' off stump lbw review. I can't remember seeing many umpire's calls that weren't just shaving as opposed to smashing off stump out the ground.

That's because generally speaking, a ball that's just shaving the outside of off stump would've been hitting the batsman outside the line anyway.

 

[Jarquis]

Not necessarily to right arm over to a LH and left arm over to a RH. Or even an offie/SLA around the wicket if it grips a bit.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

So following the Khawaja decision, I'm interested in what DRS apologists think the protocols should be for overturning non-LBW decisions at this point. It feels like there's been a lot of back and forth this series over how it should function, from the umpire seemingly using a lack of evidence on the tech to support the umpire's decision to overrule (Trott decision) to the umpire needing clear evidence that the umpire's decision is wrong to overturn, which basically seems to amount to absolutely no doubt at all, no matter how slight, or the on-field decision stands.

I'm inclined towards the view that, if DRS is here to stay, just having the third umpire make a decision completely independent from the on-field ump and going with it is better than what we have now. Basically treating the review system for non-LBWs as being the option of having the decision made by a completely different umpire twice per innings. Because right now the "evidence to overturn" system just seems totally non-functional for anything other than LBWs. For LBW at least the decision is fundamentally subjective on some level, the umpire thinks it's going to hit the stumps or he doesn't, and something that is just flicking the stumps could easily be out or not out and both decisions are fair enough. But with edges there's a clear problem where an unexplained sound or deflection makes it basically impossible to overrule a decision. The only way I could see the umpire's call being overturned is when it goes against the batting side, ie the umpire thinks they've missed it and hotspot, being the only totally conclusive piece of tech available, clearly shows an edge. But for decisions that favour the batsmen it really feels broken right now, even if you ignore any other issues with it holding up play, impacting spectator enjoyment etc.

It's not just that you can miss the ball by a couple of inches but be given out because there's a random noise that creates "doubt", but that the batting side is punished by losing a review even if reviewing it was totally reasonable.

 

[91Jmay]

I think the person reviewing the decision should be independent of the umpires (someone specially trained in the tech but obviously with a cricket background) and should be simply asked is there enough evidence to overturn this decision. Get the feeling there is to much umpires union at the moment.

 

[Howe_zat]

Why do people insist on saying Hotspot is useless because it can't disprove edges when it can prove them? Why can't we bear in mind what it can and can't do when using it? It's like saying you had to throw away a screwdriver because it didn't help you clean your sink.

 

[grecian]

I think the person reviewing the decision should be independent of the umpires (someone specially trained in the tech but obviously with a cricket background) and should be simply asked is there enough evidence to overturn this decision. Get the feeling there is to much umpires union at the moment.

Yep, as I say again and again.

Anyway as I mentioned on the other thread new Tech being trialled, see if that gives more definitive answers. Yet I'm sorry, I understand people's frustrations, but if the Umpires weren't just being cretinously, ****-wittedly incompetent then these problems wouldn't be happening.

Khawaja's decision should have been over-ruled, and it should have been a reason for DRS.

The use of the word apologists isn't really helpful, particularly after the Khawaja dismissal, as it was the same decision given as before.

 

[FaaipDeOiad]

Why do people insist on saying Hotspot is useless because it can't disprove edges when it can prove them? Why can't we bear in mind what it can and can't do when using it? It's like saying you had to throw away a screwdriver because it didn't help you clean your sink.

If you rely on a piece of tech to prove something the lack of proof on that piece of tech has to at least suggest that there wasn't an edge, otherwise you end up with situations like this. I mean, if you break it down, I'm sure we all see the through process Dharmasena went through, right? Following Trott in the first test, where he was given out because hotspot did not show evidence of an edge, they're clearly under directive to not count a lack of hotspot as evidence of no edge but use other tech. So the umpire gives it out, video replay shows no evidence of an edge, hotspot shows no evidence of an edge, there is an unexplained sound that could theoretically be the ball hitting the bat, that sound was obviously the basis of the on-field decision, so there's some "doubt". Can't overturn the umpire's decision. You have to at least conclude that if there is no evidence on hotspot you need something else conclusive to suggest the ball hit the bat.

To put it another way, there's a reason you talk about "reasonable" doubt in a criminal trial and not just "doubt" full stop, because you can create doubt out of basically nothing, as Dharmasena did. You have to take the lack of evidence on tech as a strong suggestion the ball did not hit the bat unless something else conclusively suggests otherwise.

Either that or forget about lawyering over umpiring decisions and let the umpire's decision stand. Because the current system is clearly non-functional.