Review system under the scanner

[Rajiv]

I want to ban referrels for LBWs. Hawkeye is a buggy software and should not be used for LBW decisions.

Pirated version always screws up

[cowboysfan]

it has worked fine-if only our batsmen can get their act together.

[yoda]

I want to ban referrels for LBWs. Hawkeye is a buggy software and should not be used for LBW decisions.

I agree. I propose a phone call to Bucknor instead. :-D

[Holysmoke]

So is it virtual eye for all games? Or is Hawk eye for games in England, etc. BTW, Wikipedia says ICC now uses hawk eye technology for referrals. I dont know whether they mean Hawk Eye™ or just the technology.

[Chorazin Reto]

""it has worked fine-if only our batsmen can get their act together."" We have a wnner!!

[Feed]

India unhappy over new referral system? Indian team management, however, has not made any official statement on the meeting. More... India unhappy over new referral system? . Press Trust Of India Galle, Sri Lanka, July 30, 2008 First Published: 17:05 IST(30/7/2008) Last Updated: 17:07 IST(30/7/2008) The Indian cricket team is learnt to have raised concerns about the ICC's new concept of umpire decision review system on the eve of the second Test against Sri Lanka. Indian skipper Anil Kumble met Match Referee Alan Hurst and also other match officials to put across his point of view and reservation about the referral system, launched on an experimental basis in the ongoing series. According to sources, Kumble met Hurst and the three umpires -- Mark Benson, Rudi Koertzen and Billy Doctrove -- and the meeting was cited as the main reason for skipping the usual pre-match media meet. Indian team management, however, has not made any official statement on the meeting. India had suffered heavily due to the new referral system in the first Test as four batsmen fell prey to the technological innovations used in the game. The visitors were mauled by an innings and 239 runs at the Sinhalese Sports Club ground in the first Test as their big shots --Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Rahul Dravid were declared out when the referral system came into play. As per the system, both the teams are allowed to make three unsuccesful appeals against on-field umpires decision. The Third umpire then review the decision after watching TV replays.

[DomainK]

Why? Because we made stupid referrals? Thats why? We were downright stupid in the way we spent our chances and Lanka were wise in doing that. That does not make the system bad, whats bad is the way we used it. As far as that one mistake is concerned, the system is not made to eliminate all mistakes. Its made to minimize them and thats what it did.

[cowboysfan]

wtf?.we complain when we lose against SL when it was kumble and batsmen's fault-what will we do against the aussies when the decisions go against us?-boycott our own series?.I hate this crap-get on with the game please.

[chamatkar]

BCCI se paise dilwao aur hawkeye ki company khareed lo... phir coding ke liye ICF'ers ko bithaa do.

[Ram]

Sounds like sour grapes to me. Tis always easy to be wise AFTER the event. With two world-class spinners, especially with one them renowned for lbws and bowleds, Lanka was always going to benefit from referrals. The trend will continue though the test series. Obviously, the Indians havent thought this through.

[fineleg]

In Aus - I was fully behind the team complaining abt umpiring. We'd have won the Aus series if not for umpiring. Here, I agree with MM - this is sour grapes. We played so bad, that all the "favorable umpiring" in the world, would not have helped us. Referral system is good for the long run. Just move on, and win the match, India.

[Sachinism]

Dravid dismissal adds familiar twist Such have been the vicissitudes of this Test that the third day would have been a letdown without a last-minute twist. Rahul Dravid went ruing what would have seemed to him the injustices of the review system, but his dismissal meant the match was wrenched open after India had begun to put their seal on it. It is perhaps simplistic, but one way of gauging a match is to count the sessions' winners. At Colombo last week Sri Lanka had won all but the first session; this match has been different. On the first day, India took the first session conclusively and Sri Lanka the second equally emphatically; the first session on the second day was 50-50, while Sri Lanka took the second and India the third. The first two sessions of the third day went India's way and, had they taken the third, would perhaps have been placed conclusively ahead. But Sri Lanka managed to snatch the third session by taking three top-order wickets, and the score now reads India 4.5, Sri Lanka 3.5. India are ahead at the moment, but just about; Sri Lanka are a wicket away from effecting a collapse. Until those late strikes, India looked like altering the script. Wickets have fallen in clusters for the most part in this match, and Sri Lanka had continued the trend by losing first two, then three. However, the Indian batsmen defied the trend by putting 90 for the first wicket, 54 for the second, and 56 for the third. The pitch hasn't broken yet but it assisted the spinners all day, and it demanded vigilance from batsmen, and considerable skill and a touch of bravery, to score on it. India have been fortunate in that they have in this Test two openers who are such good players of spin. Openers are, in many ways, best placed to score runs on Sri Lankan pitches because the new ball is not the most threatening in these conditions - in fact, it allows openers to get their feet moving before the spinners arrive. And Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir can not only read the spinners, they have the skills and wide range of strokes to score off them heavily and quickly. It wasn't a surprise that Muttiah Muralitharan was employed in the sixth over but it was a measure of Sri Lanka's respect for Sehwag that they posted three men on the leg-side boundary. There were four more in the inner cordon on leg as Murali settled to bowl round the wicket. Sehwag's second scoring shot off Murali was a thundering sweep that sped between deep midwicket and deep square leg. In the next over, another went in the same direction, this time over the boundary. That ended Murali's spell and, when he resumed, he went over the wicket and Sehwag reverted to milking him on the off side. Till he miscalculated his lofted cover drive against Chaminda Vaas, Sehwag had looked like galloping away with the match. Irrespective of what happens now, it has been an extraordinary performance from him: for the first time in his career he followed up a century with a half-century - his previous highest second-innings score after a first-innings hundred was 38 - and, if India do go on to win it, it will be remembered as Sehwag's Test. But Gambhir's contribution has been no less vital. He has been India's most consistent batsman on the tour so far and, as his scores would suggest, seems to be growing with every innings. He has learnt from his mistakes in the first Test, when he twice threw his wicket away against Murali, but has not let that affect his shot-making. His footwork against the spinners was exceptional today, as was the certainty of his strokeplay. He repeatedly cover-drove Murali by advancing down the wicket and, till Ajantha Mendis undid him with a pearl, Gambhir treated his variations with utmost assuredness. The most absorbing battle of the day was, of course, between Mendis and Rahul Dravid. Before today, Dravid had faced 32 balls from Mendis and scored eight runs while being dismissed three times. Those numbers don't say how many times he was deceived and beaten. Today, he scored a single off his first ball - a firm push to cover - and hit his fifth ball, a googly that was marginally short, for a four. In the next over Mendis beat him twice with his flicked legcutters, the first one nearly exploding off the pitch, but in between Dravid cracked him to the point boundary. Mendis continued to trouble him, three times pinning him on the leg on the back foot, but slowly, and surely, the real Dravid emerged. Ball by ball, over by over, Dravid extricated himself from the spell that Mendis had on him. The footwork grew surer, gone was the front-foot jab that had cost him his wicket twice, and 25 of his 44 runs came off Mendis's bowling. But perhaps it was his restored confidence that cost him his wicket, and provided the match its customary twist.

[King]

Doesn't matter what the ball from Murali to Dravid was going to hit the stumps. Whether he was hit 2 meters ahead of the stumps or not is secondary given the ball hit Dravid almost on the full. On pitches in Australia a similar striking of the ball should be called not out as the ball bounces way more. Whether the 3rd umpire is smart enough to point that out is open to questions. As for the review system it could be a bit dodgy given the bounce may differ on every pitch. People in the past have trusted the hawkeye and called truce when the umpires rules it not out while the hawkeye showed the ball hitting the middle stump. Now we should carry that faith and just because it was Rahul Dravid in question we can't be raising questions now. I'm sure most would agree hawkeye does better job than umpires. If one gets given out on the basis of that then be it.

[King]

BTW why do we have local umpire as a 3rd umpire, shouldn't the 3rd umpire be neutral be as well? As usual ICC has set some ambiguous time to ask for a review and Jayawardene was in his own right to ask for a review. As usual ICC has mentioned the review should be done with in seconds without specifying how many. Few seconds could be 10 seconds, 60 seconds, 240 seconds or even 300 seconds given there is no clear cut definition of how much is few seconds. ICC introduces something with such ambiguity it's hard for the players and the umpires to make anything out of it. Umpires have to play by rules and when no specific time limit is specified they can’t make any call whatsoever. Jayawardene can’t be blamed either as he has no clue what that few seconds mean.

[Predator_05]

BTW why do we have local umpire as a 3rd umpire' date=' shouldn't the 3rd umpire be neutral be as well?.[/quote'] They are. Mark Benson was the 3rd umpire at first, but he had to replace Koertzen - who was out with some kind of illness, if i am not mistaken. That's why Gamini Silva was in the 3rd umpire's seat.

[Feed]

Another look at reviews : Sambit Bal The referral system needed to be tried, but there are plenty of questions still unanswered and kinks to be worked out. More... Opinion | Sambit Bal Another look at reviews The review system needed to be tried, but there are plenty of questions still unanswered and kinks to be worked out August 4, 2008 The jury is out: India have had more cause to feel aggrieved by the use of the review system than Sri Lanka so far © AFP After having been in use for all of two Tests, the review system now needs a review. There is no doubt that it needed to be tried, though it would perhaps have been preferable to have trialled it during the Champions Trophy, which is an ICC-run tournament, and where all the teams would have got a taste of it. But it can be argued that one-day cricket doesn't produce the sort of dismissals that would have tested the system to its fullest; and in fact, having used it in a Test series, the advantages and disadvantages have been exposed to a greater degree. To that extent, the trial has served its purpose already. The results have been mixed. In the first Test, Sri Lanka benefited from the review process four times - twice justly, twice wrongly. No field umpire would have given Sachin Tendulkar out to an edge behind his pads, which only the replays revealed; and Rahul Dravid was so clearly out that it was a surprise the umpire didn't spot the edge. Much-deserved justice for the bowlers on both occasions. But Tillakaratne Dilshan benefited from lack of immediate visual evidence of a nick, which had been spotted by the field umpire in the first instance. And then, far more shockingly, Virender Sehwag was given out because of a human error from the third umpire, and alarmingly, an error from the Virtual Eye system, which is expected to produce reliable graphics. Rudi Koertzen, the third umpire in question, should have spotted the obvious deflection from the front pad onto the back one; Virtual Eye showed the impact to be in front of middle stump, but outside the crease. Sehwag was indeed hit outside the crease - on the front pad, which was in line with leg stump. The second impact was in front of middle stump, but the back foot was within the crease. The system again invited some justifiable scepticism when it projected a ball from Ajantha Mendis that pitched on middle and hit Gautam Gambhir in line with leg stump, to be shaving leg. Of course, the umpires do not use the projection part of the system, and Gambhir was ruled not out, but the doubts only grew. The Indians might feel hard done by, but that's merely because they have had more decisions going against them. And that's not really the point. They lost in Colombo because they failed abysmally with the bat, the ball, and in the field. The question before the administrators is whether the game is better served by the review process. The review system exists to undo obvious wrongs, but it's clear that teams will ask for reviews simply because they have a few pending, and in some cases because bowlers always think that they have got their man There is evidence, as acutely manifested during the morning session on the fourth day of the Galle Test, that too many reviews can get tiresome and create major interruptions in the game. There were four reviews in the session, and each lasted four to five minutes. Sourav Ganguly, on being prompted by his batting partner, won himself a reprieve, which would have seemed like justice to the Indians after Dravid was given out - rightly, as it turned out - following a demand for a review from the Sri Lankans. But Anil Kumble asked for a review when he was stone-dead leg-before, and Sri Lanka made two unsuccessful reviews on leg-before decisions. More than 15 minutes were lost in a morning session which had been extended by half an hour to make up for the lost overs on the first day. The review system exists to undo obvious wrongs, but it's clear that teams will ask for reviews simply because they have a few pending, as was evident from the Kumble instance, and in some cases because bowlers always think that they have got their man. In the first Test, Harbhajan Singh asked for one after the ball had pitched about half a foot outside the leg stump. In all, 24 unsuccessful reviews are allowed in a Test. (The total number of reviews can, of course, be much higher.) And in the event of all of these being reviewed, and granting three to five minutes per review, anything between 90 minutes to two hours of play can be lost. That's between 20 to 30 overs. Can Test cricket afford to slow itself down even further? This is not to argue that the system ought to be junked. Quite obviously, it allows edges to be detected with greater certainty. In fact, the ICC ought to go a step further and allow the use of the HotSpot technology, which has looked the most foolproof so far in detecting the impact of the ball. The super-slow cameras pick up the thick edges, but as demonstrated by the Dilshan incident, they are not good enough for the thin ones. It is understandable that not all television production companies would be inclined - and they certainly cannot be forced - to use expensive technology, so it is incumbent on the ICC, as the global custodian of the game, to employ and pay for the best available technology at all international matches. The matter is far more complicated with leg-before decisions. There is simply no technology available to remove the subjective element, and indeed, if every ball that would go on to graze a stump were to be given out, matches may well finish in two days. It is also not clear what information is exchanged between the on-field and television umpires. Does the television umpire merely communicate the information - the line of the ball, the point of impact - or does he offer an opinion? And as evident from a number of the reviews so far, despite multiple replays there remains an element of ambiguity about the final decision. If technology cannot provide an absolute answer, it is more likely to muddle the situation even further. Sehwag became the first player to be given out when the on-field umpire's decision was overturned after review... wrongly, as it happened © AFP The only areas where technology can help are in cases of line decisions for lbws, and edges, and it should be left at that. If it can be ascertained that a technology can provide accurate pitch mats, then it must be used uniformly. To cut the delay, on-field umpires could possibly be provided with handheld devices that allow them to view the pitch mats instantly. This will cut down the number of review appeals from the fielding side. It also needs to be clarified whether captains are allowed to seek an explanation from the on-field umpire, as Mahela Jayawardene did before asking for the review of Dravid's lbw, and how much time they have to make up their mind. Jayawardene was within his rights to ask the umpire: if the review is being sought, it must be done with knowledge of what evidence was used in arriving at the initial decision. The Indians obviously missed a trick because Kumble consulted only his team-mates. Of course, there is a view that cricket ought to be like baseball and football, two highly televised, multi-billion-dollar sports, that haven't bowed to the pressure of introducing technology into decision-making. But cricket made its call years ago. It is now impossible to imagine run-outs and stumpings being ruled on without a replay. And with a bit of fine-tuning and common sense, even the review system can be made to work.

[Holysmoke]

Oh man, look at Harbhajan. :wall:

[DomainK]

Oh man' date=' look at Harbhajan. :wall:[/quote'] Shining the wrong ball.:(( When will these idiots learn to behave in front of camera?

[sandtest]

is Ishant tallest Indian Cricketer?? Perhaps Gony, Nehra et al are equal?

[Chandan]

is Ishant tallest Indian Cricketer?? Perhaps Gony, Nehra et al are equal?

Shining the wrong ball.:(( When will these idiots learn to behave in front of camera?

Oh man' date=' look at Harbhajan. :wall:[/quote'] Not a single post about the article!! How disappointing!!