It is safe to say that the Decision Review System (DRS) has transformed cricket largely for the better. It has given teams who use it properly a tactical edge, allowed umpires’ occasional errors to be challenged and added more certainty to the game for spectators. However, there is still one issue that needs to be dealt with — that of “umpire’s call” with LBW decisions.
At the moment if — according to the DRS technology — the seam of the ball is not on the correct side of an imaginary line on the stump it is either meant to be hitting or pitching in line with, the decision stays with the umpire, unless he himself chooses to overturn his decision — something which is yet to happen in Test cricket. This means that if the seam misses the line by a matter of millimetres the decision stays, giving the batsman a huge advantage.
Even if the umpire has given the decision “not out” because he thinks the batsman has hit it and is proved wrong, his decision does not have to be overruled. A good example of this came in the third Ashes Test. Australia were 90-4 in the second innings and Steven Finn trapped Mitchell Marsh in front. The umpire gave “not out,” most likely because he thought Marsh had hit the ball. He didn’t, and was struck dead in line. However, the umpire was able to stay with his decision because the ball was supposedly “clipping” the stumps over the top. If the umpire thought he would have been bowled and was only not out because he hit it, why wasn’t his decision overturned?. It’s not as though had the ball missed both bat and pad, the ball would have missed the stumps or the bails would not have been dislodged.
Marsh was dismissed a few balls later and England were always going to win the Test, but the result could easily have been effected. A more crucial example came in Chris Gayle’s record-breaking 215 in the World Cup. On his first ball, Tinashe Panyangara had a huge LBW appeal turned down. Zimbabwe chose to review it and the ball was hitting the stumps. However, because the seam was on the wrong side of the imaginary line, the umpire was allowed to stay with his decision, Zimbabwe lost their only review and Gayle went on to make a double century.
Is this not unfair? Did not Panyangara deserve his wicket? There should be no “umpire’s call.” As with other circumstances in which the technology is used, it should be “out” or “not out.” The current system gives too much of an advantage to the batsman as already shown, but also affords too much comfort to the umpires.
There is no doubt that the International umpires do a fantastic job. They are able, using only the naked eye, to differentiate between a ball hitting the edge of a batsman’s bat and clipping his pad at 90mph. More often than not, they can tell whether a ball is going over the stumps or pitching outside the line. However, sometimes when they think the ball is missing the stumps on an LBW appeal, it is actually clipping them. Why are they allowed to be deemed right when the technology has proven them wrong?
The argument is that if the ball is only clipping the stumps the technology cannot be 100% certain that it would have hit. This seems unlikely, and this lack of confidence is giving the batsman an unnecessary advantage. If you’re going to have this technology, use it with full confidence. Hawk-eye is incredibly accurate and has been for years. In tennis, when the ball is out or in by the finest of margins, they don’t leave the decision up to the umpire. At the very least, the amount of the stump that the ball is allowed to hit and be called “out” should be increased.
If the ICC are not going to solve the umpire’s call dilemma, they should at the very least take away some of the disadvantage from the bowling team. As Geoffrey Boycott often points out, there is no point in reviewing an LBW decision unless it is absolutely plumb. This is discouraging the captain from using the technology available. If the decision is “umpire’s call,” why not keep the decision but not take away a review from the team who use it? That would be a way of admitting that the technology is not 100% certain, but the team were right to use it.
There may come a day when the fourth umpire can be absolutely certain that the ball would have hit the stumps or not. Until then, the bowling side should not be put at a huge disadvantage just because of a few millimetres.
