Counties drop referrel experiment

[talksport]

What a shame http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/cricket/counties/7065229.stm

[Holysmoke]

why?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ram]

I dont like the idea of referrals. Bad decisions due to incompetent umpiring and the effects it has is a part of cricket and adds to the aura/mystique/uncertainty that the game has to offer. Its like trying to implement a technology so that no batsman ever edges a ball , no bowler ever bowls a bad ball or no fielder ever drops a catch. As much as the varying degrees of talents of the players is what makes it interesting , the errors in judgment that the umpires make also adds to game's charm. Instead of coming up with some half-baked ideas like this, the ICC should do what it can in helping the umpire to improve his decision making. Whatever be the reasons , the umpire's decision is final.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ram]

lets see Dravid our best batsmen going into the SAF series last year was mugged 3 times out of the 6 inngs in the entire series .... thats a cool 50% right there ... Could you tell me how that is charming ? ... since for the life of me I couldnt figure out how that works however hard I might try ... Iam not trying to be a smart ass just a very honest query ... if you dont mind.

As the cliche goes , you lose some , you win some. Say for example the Kolkata test match against Australia in 2001. Gilchrist was clearly NOT OUT in the Aussie second inninga. Considering the form he was in , i would have backed him then to go on to make an atleast quickfire 30, instead of the first ball duck he made and Aus may well have saved the match. If they had referred that and the decision over-turned , we wouldnt all be talking of that match as one of the greatest Indian victories , or even see Laxman's innings in the magical light that we see it today. Even in the previous one-day series against Aus , in the 4th game, Sachin had clearly edged one to the keeper off Lee.He had wasted many balls by then and if he had been given out by the referral method , India would have been in dire straits. He went on to make 80-odd, India scored 290 odd and Aus lost the match by 8 runs. And in the last match too, Karthik edged one off Johnson to Gilchrist quite early in his innings. If he was given out by referral, we would have been 9 down and in all probability lost the match. Ever wondered how the series result would have looked then ? Maybe 6-0 and not the 4-2 it looks now. It is actually quite a pointless excercise to look at individual cases of when a team lost out or gained because of umpiring errors. But as i said , that is what makes cricket an interesting sport - The Human element that supercedes natural talent sometimes. You may be the best team , but that doesnt mean you will win always. There are other factors like pitch , afternoon dew , umpiring errors that go in a long way in deciding the fate of the match.

[Holysmoke]

As the cliche goes , you lose some , you win some. Say for example the Kolkata test match against Australia in 2001. Gilchrist was clearly NOT OUT in the Aussie second inninga. Considering the form he was in , i would have backed him then to go on to make an atleast quickfire 30, instead of the first ball duck he made and Aus may well have saved the match. If they had referred that and the decision over-turned , we wouldnt all be talking of that match as one of the greatest Indian victories , or even see Laxman's innings in the magical light that we see it today. Even in the previous one-day series against Aus , in the 4th game, Sachin had clearly edged one to the keeper off Lee.He had wasted many balls by then and if he had been given out by the referral method , India would have been in dire straits. He went on to make 80-odd, India scored 290 odd and Aus lost the match by 8 runs. And in the last match too, Karthik edged one off Johnson to Gilchrist quite early in his innings. If he was given out by referral, we would have been 9 down and in all probability lost the match. Ever wondered how the series result would have looked then ? Maybe 6-0 and not the 4-2 it looks now. It is actually quite a pointless excercise to look at individual cases of when a team lost out or gained because of umpiring errors. But as i said , that is what makes cricket an interesting sport - The Human element that supercedes natural talent sometimes. You may be the best team , but that doesnt mean you will win always. There are other factors like pitch , afternoon dew , umpiring errors that go in a long way in deciding the fate of the match.

Exactly. Thats why each single decision that an umpire makes is so important in the long run. If gilly was given out, then laxman probably wouldnt be in the test team as of now! That is why, we need to minimize the amount of bad decisions. Anything that does that, should be incorporated as quickly as possible. For that reason, this should not have been scrapped. I would rather watch a series with 0 mistakes, rather than be "charmed" by the umpire making false decisions.

[Ram]

Exactly. Thats why each single decision that an umpire makes is so important in the long run. If gilly was given out' date= then laxman probably wouldnt be in the test team as of now! That is why, we need to minimize the amount of bad decisions. Anything that does that, should be incorporated as quickly as possible. For that reason, this should not have been scrapped. I would rather watch a series with 0 mistakes, rather than be "charmed" by the umpire into false decisions.

Errr..No. Laxman would have still played that 281 by then. His batting talent would have still been there and if he were good enough ( which he is) he would have found a place in the team anyway ( which he has). You have missed the OBVIOUS point. If Gilchrist had been given not out and Aus saved that match , the cricketing world would have probably been denied of one of the best test-match series in modern cricket history. You guys are seeing bad umpiring decisions as a simple " out - notout" or " Good for team - Bad for team" equation. I say that is wrong. It is an overall part of the nuances that make cricket the sport that it is. If we were to be intent of making everything fair to everybody , then the pitch shouldnt deteriorate for the side batting second , the ball that was changed should swing only as much as it did for the other team, there must exactly the same amount of dew on outfield all the time. why arent you guys complaining when things like these affect a cricket match ?

[Ram]

Exactly. Thats why each single decision that an umpire makes is so important in the long run. If gilly was given out, then laxman probably wouldnt be in the test team as of now! That is why, we need to minimize the amount of bad decisions. Anything that does that, should be incorporated as quickly as possible. For that reason, this should not have been scrapped. I would rather watch a series with 0 mistakes, rather than be "charmed" by the umpire making false decisions.

Trust me , the excitement the game has to offer will be killed by this referral system. Imagine this situation. Australia is chasing India's total of 285. They are 225/6 in the 43rd over, with Symonds and Hogg putting on a decent 45 runs off 45 balls for the 7th wicket. Sreesanth bowls , raps Symonds on the pads , appeals for LBW. Umpire gives it out. Symonds refers, third umpire finds an inside-edge, reverses decision and Symonds goes on to win the game. You think that is exciting to watch ? You think that is actually proper cricket ? Bad umpiring decisions are part of cricketing fork lore.That is what makes the game what it is. I say , by all means , assist the umpire in his decision making. But to replace him totally is one stupid , short-sighted approach that shows lack of proper understanding of how the game works.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ram]

MM ... its all good to bank on cliches but if you are willing to get into specifics I can quite easily show you how we get mugged far more than the others ... especially while playing Aus/Eng/SAF .... but I suspet you wouldnt be interseted in that ? As it is lets see how many of SAF batsmen got mugged in that series ... just as bad as RD and just as many times .... isnt that what you are infereing when you fall back on those cliches ? And does level playing field and fair play mean anything ?

Aaaaah ! BB , i can actually see that you are angry with this system not because it seems to affect the eventual outcome of the match ,but because the Indian team is apparently at the receiving end of more bad decisions. I dont know if you can even substantiate such an allegation. How long should we search ? last 10 test matches ? Last 10 seasons ? Last 2 decades ? I think you get my point. As for your point on level playing field , you might want to read my other posts where i have mentioned deteriorating pitch conditions, a change of ball that swings more or afternoon dew which makes it harder for the bowlers to bowl that affect matches. What do you think we do about these then ?

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ram]

On a series by series basis .. if we get lucky playing vs BD and Zimbabwe while we get mugged against Eng and AUS its not called - it evens up .... So let me know how far you want to go back starting from the last series and Iam talking only test series.

But that is the problem you see. How do we decide which is the right time-line to choose ? And even if we agree on say the last 5 test series that India played , how are we ever going to decide who got the worse of the umpiring ? we couldnt possibly see all the matches again and i say that because its not only the not-outs that are given as outs that influence a match , it is also the outs that are given as not-outs that makes a huge difference. As Sidhu once said , If Hawkeye were an umpire , every team would be bowled out 90-odd, because many times close LBWs are given not-out by umpires because there is doubt. Hawk-eye wouldnt do that. A ball clipping top of leg-stump will given not-out by an umpire 9/10 times. Not by Hawkeye.

Thats not artificially manufactured .... thats the difference.

Which gives the impression as though you seem to think its all part of a grand conspiracy by western nations against India. That is a very serious allegation to make , something that goes beyond just biased umpiring.

[Ram]

Actually MM we dont even have to go far and wide .... lets see a Test match where we had the benefit of 9 decisions going in favour of us (all in one single Test match) .... going by your theory we should have had our share of such luxury .... and indeed I can even produce evidence ....

Go ahead BB. I am eager to see the kind of evidence you have to give.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ram]

what do u prefer 1. Ball-by-ball video footage 2. News articles 3. My explantion of events 4. Apologies from the umpire himself

Ball-by-ball footage - Its just too laborious to do that. The rest of the three is all circumstantial mainly because no news news article/apologies from the umpire/your memory of events will cover outs that were given not-outs. As long as we dont factor that into consideration , we cant really come to a conclusion. And again , this is not something we can do over one test match or a series , but over a time-line. I have a better idea. How about we create a separate thread NOW ,that lists EACH and EVERY umpiring error in the following test series against Aus , PAk and the Saffies. Anybody can contribute to that thread. surely we will be onto something by then.

[Guest BossBhai]

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[Ram]

sure ... but it can be done if it comes to that .... I got the ball-by-ball of that horrific match which Iam talking about ... i.e Ind vs Aus at B'lore in 2004. We havent gotten even 4 or 5 since then in the next 3 tests never mind in that same test. I indeed can recall pretty much everything that happened especially the muggings .... it can be verified to a cetain extent from Cricinfo ball-by-ball commentary .... If we had gotten soo many favours from umpires I would have been eaten raw by the aussie sympathisers here ... that in itself is proof ... and FWIW I had written an article over "there" after that horror episode ... But on the other hand I will just take your word if you can come up with a Test match where we got soo brazenly lucky ... can you even name one ?

As i said , it is not logically proper to just look at 3 even 4 matches in isolation and come to a definite conclusion.

This is a good idea and to some extent we can go back and check from our match threads itself what happened.

Yes , we can do the match threads , but let us make a fresh start now. Even the other posters are aware of it now.