UDRS: Time for referral upstairs!

The cricket world currently is in a lull; while Australia and West Indies went about a grueling full tour, the rest were resting. But their pivotal flag bearers were busy in the highly lucrative and sometimes interesting Indian Premier League (IPL). To the few who are not engrossed in the Indian domestic Twenty20 tournament, this is a time well suited to contemplate, analyze the game from an administrative and tactical standpoint as well as plan for the future of this game that all come to love and loathe (well, certain formats at least) at the same time.

While oft repeated topics such as the decline of Test cricket due to the advent of T20 are still on the upswing, important issues such as match and spot-fixing have also shown their ugly heads. However the one topic which seems to continue with its love-hate relationship with the game is the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS). The system which fundamentally puts the Umpire’s decisions under review, while helpful to a certain extent has in fact been quite detrimental to the sport in more ways than one. While there are positives to the system, it is riddled with far too many loopholes that can be overlooked.

While the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) remains the only cricket board to not be in favour of the system, the cricket fraternities in the rest of the world have found it convenient to blame the BCCI for being a ‘bully’. This is in addition to the fact that the boards around the world are vary of India’s financial dominance over the sport as well as the ‘success’ of the IPL and as Kevin Pietersen pointed out, the jealousy thereof has meant that the system has been adopted despite not clearing many proof checks or being ascertained to be nearly 100 percent accurate.

Along with the accuracy, another important negative is that of consumption of time. Wherein reviews have become a long and cumbersome process starting with the bowler and captain contemplating whether to ask for a review, followed by an eventual agreement, then images of the umpire on his wireless followed by lengths of footage replaying the action, and finally the decision on the giant which invariably is precluded by a graphic of a stating a pending decision – another few seconds adding to the already time consuming game which frankly lasts for 5 days, which by the way, in the current scheme needs anything but further addition in the duration.

On the flip side though, to some fans the extension might not mean a lot considering that they already have decided to invest 5 days into the game. Though some of the old folk might not quite comprehend this, but the review system does excite the occasional youngster into more intrigue and hence an added interest in the game at hand, however, with Tests struggling to fill seats in stadiums and the former seems to have much larger say for the fate of this format.

Are referrals useful overall? Ah, now that’s a tough one. Tony Greig, while commentating during the recently concluded West Indies-Australia Test series, harped on the point that the right decision was being made in the end going by the letter of the Laws of Cricket, that’s probably true. Assuming that the technology is reasonably accurate, the TV umpire should be able to make the right decision – which incidentally includes applying the benefit of the doubt, if any, in favour of the batsman. Even the letter of the Law requires that. But is that really happening overall?

Now both sides have an “equal opportunity” to challenge an umpire’s decision. But notice the pattern of the successful reviews – almost all of them have overturned an umpire’s “not out” decision, thus favouring the fielding side overall. There were very few cases of a batsman being wrongly given out, successfully challenging the decision. Most of the batsman-initiated challenges failed to change the decisions, even in the case of LBWs. That in itself tells us something – that umpires tend to get the “outs” correct most of the time!

So what the reviews are achieving is to reverse the umpire’s “not outs”, most of which were Leg Before Wicket decisions. Those were “not outs” in the first place because the umpire gave the benefit of doubt to the batsman, as he should. It’s particularly tricky for LBWs, considering the complications which already exist in such a dismissal, which frankly is based entirely based on human perception, begging the question whether a review system is even relevant in such cases.

The Law probably came into being to stop any blatant attempts to guard the stumps using the pads rather than the bat. It shouldn’t be used as an excuse to get a wicket, just because the ball happens to hit the batsman’s pad. Some of the LBWs given after review in this series were so marginal (e.g. pad-bat in that sequence, or height-wise just clipping the bail) that it’s hard to claim that the right decision was made in the end.

Some would argue that it’s about time the bowlers got some help against the meatier bats, the bouncer restrictions, etc. But by practically eliminating the benefit of doubt using technology, the referral system is altering the game at a fundamental level. In the traditional game, if a batsman is wrongly given out, that’s it, his innings is over, no second chance. If the batsman is wrongly given not-out, tough luck for the fielding side, but they have plenty of second chances. If the referral system is adopted, this fundamental nature of the game changes manifold. It will have an impact on batting techniques in the years to come, meaning a batsman who would risk playing an audacious shot, such as a reverse sweep, would remain skeptical as it might cost him his wicket guaranteed as even a potential hit to the top of the leg stump means ‘Out’, which is poles apart from a time before the UDRS, where a ball sliding slightly down leg would be mean a decision in favour of the batsman as a benefit of doubt resulting in a decline in innovation and flair, both pivotal points associated with the success of T20.

With technology being an important aspect in every of our daily lives, it was just a matter of time before it crept into a sport known for its rigidness in being traditional. While adopting it should be taken positively, it also needs to be ascertained whether the technology is fool-proof and whether its use propagates more positives than negatives, and currently there seem to be far too many negatives to only focus on the positives.

The use of a TV umpire in itself is okay for line decisions, bump balls and the like – but the decision whether to call upon the third umpire should rest with the on-field umpires. TV referrals have been tried and junked in other sports like American football. Football too, one of the most popular games in the world, owes much of its success to the fact that the game remains one of the simplest to comprehend and cheapest to play, its administration too has kept an arms-length away from adopting technology in assisting in anyway. Cricket, which frankly already has a complicated rule base, can do well with not adding to the already long list of do’s and don’ts that accompany the game.