Opinion Men have failed the machine
Dharmasena,who had ultra motion replays,Hot Spot from three angles and stump audio at hand deemed Khawaja had edged the ball
By a conservative count,it was the fifth umpiring howler of the ongoing Ashes series. Usman Khawaja walked back to the pavilion feeling cheated,holding in the bat that hadnt touched the last ball he faced. Replays showed broad daylight between wood and leather at the alleged point of impact. The umpires surprisingly even the one glued to the television,Kumar Dharmasena,who had ultra motion replays,Hot Spot from three angles and stump audio at hand deemed Khawaja had edged the ball to the wicket-keeper.
Australia went on an instant boil. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd tweeted,…one of the worst cricket umpiring decisions I have ever seen,even before Khwaja had reached the dressing room. Far away from the action at Old Trafford,in India,the land of DRS-doubters,the BCCI officials nudged and winked while boasting how their stand was vindicated. They had muscled DRS away from their games,calling the technology unreliable. We knew it all along,it wouldnt work, they have been saying with a chuckle since the first Ashes Test.
Hold on,who should be the laughing stock here? The umpires or the DRS? On last count,the howler scoreline read: Umpires 5,Technology 1. It is a no-contest,the men had failed the machine. Unfairly,it was the human error that was giving the DRS a bad name. Certainly,technical flaws needed to be ironed out and implementation of the DRS will be improved. But,most importantly,it was umpires who needed to be trained better to use a system that was doing its share of good to the game. At the cost of a few howlers here and there,more correct decisions are being made plus excessive appealing and cases of dissent have gone down.
As Simon Taufel said at the MCC lecture,technology,like a genie,cant be wished away. It will be around. The DRS,a work in progress,needs regular outing of a cricket turf to grow robust. It cant be confined in discussion room in the hope that one day a perfect system will somehow take birth.
As for the BCCI,they need to grow up. Its a country that has moaned the most about errors in pre-review days. They forced the ICC to change an umpire. Remember Steve Bucknor? Forfeited a Test because of an umpiring ruling. Remember the Mike Denness affair? A country that hasnt had an umpire in the elite panel for about a decade first makes a fuss about human errors and later expresses its reluctance to use a system that has got nearly 95 per cent of the decisions right. India needs to review their decision on technology.
Sandeep is the National Sports Editor,based in New Delhi
sandeep.dwivedi@expressindia.com
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