R Mohan: A step in the right direction

It is in the interest of the game that India and the ICC have been able to reach a consensus on the issue of UDRS.

At India’s prodding, the ICC has arrived at a compromise where the UDRS will be compulsorily used but with the rider that the ball tracking technology is optional in bilateral series. This is a halfway measure but at least the BCCI has been made to see the light on technology being the best way forward to avoid poor umpiring decisions of the type that tend to wreck a game of cricket and ruin its image.

The Sabina Park experience might have been sufficient for Team India to throw its weight behind the BCCI move to accept the UDRS, albeit in a modified and watered down form. The number of poor decisions that Daryl Harper handed down proved nightmarish enough for India to realize the efficacy of a system that helps to do away with such incompetence from the men in white coats.

It’s a blessing of modern cricket that no one speaks of bias when it comes to umpiring decisions, although such simplistic exclusion of an old problem might not hold water in some exceptional cases. It is hardly worthwhile to dwell on the past by raking up such issues as Steve Bucknor and his apparent animus against the Indians that led to such a ruckus he had to be stood down in Australia three years ago.

 Harper did not exactly do his profession proud in arriving at some strange decisions in the Kingston Test that India won despite being at the receiving end of all the ‘human error’ behind his decisions. So far as Team India is concerned, both the gentlemen mentioned have been bugbears as Sachin Tendulkar will readily acknowledge since his batting stints in Australia were cruelly cut down by this pair.

Now, Hot Spot would have found Harper out on two of three occasions in which he ruled so compulsively against Indian batsmen. Technology would have spotted that there was no bat contact in the dismissals of Suresh Raina and Virat Kohli. And Dhoni would have been ruled not out because the bowler Bishoo breached the return crease. Three top order men getting the marching orders thus did make things sticky at this level of the game.

Under the modified UDRS without Hawk Eye, there would have been no way for India to get justice in those instances in which Chanderpaul and company were so palpably in front. It is clear LBWs will remain contentious but at least a lot of misjudgment on the part of umpires can be taken out of the international game by normal referrals that should not take too long, save in the case of the Snickometer that takes a while to spit out its replays.

Team India has its own arguments against ball tracking. Its members even quote the Sachin reprieve in the World Cup semi-final against Pakistan as a case in point to sustain their argument about there being too much of a human element in predictive technology. They will be pleased their viewpoint has prevailed. In some ways this is a pity because Hawk Eye could also be the way forward since improvements in technology are rapid in this age.

It would look really ridiculous if, say, Dhoni were to be adjudged LBW in England to a ball pitching a foot outside leg stump. Unfortunately, such incidents are not that uncommon at a time when umpires are under increasing scrutiny in high-pressure cricket. Would it be possible at least to integrate Hawk Eye to the extent of its pointing out at least where the ball pitched? The electronic ‘mat’ has been a very popular innovation that has saved the game from considerable embarrassment.

Tragic as Harper’s decision not to stand in his farewell Test is, technology still represents the best way forward to demolish the myth that umpires are close to 100 percent accurate in their decision making. There really is no reason why cricket cannot be a modern game harnessing the best of technology to try and eliminate as much human error as possible from decision making. The modified UDRS is a small step in that direction.