How does ICC calculate the percentage of correct decisions?

[The Outsider]

Whenever the ICC is criticized over umpiring they throw out some vague 92.876% figure in tests and 96.231% figure in ODIs and the media goes silent over it. It's a common practice in science to explain methodologies. Why doesn't the ICC explain to us the methodology for coming up with these numbers? Anyone who has followed recent international cricket regularly will know that those numbers are not right. As I see it, there are two huge loopholes in those numbers : 1. What is the denominator in calculating those numbers? I suspect to boost those numbers up in a farcical manner the ICC adds half hearted appeals, which even the bowler knows is not out, into the number of decisions the umpire was called in to make a ruling. An example would be Harbhajan Singh bowling over the wicket to Hayden and hits him on the pads , turns around with an agonizing "Oooh", knowing fully well the ball pitched way outside leg stump. The ICC spinners rush to their computers and add one more correct ruling by the umpire. Even the players themselves can rule that as not out, as it happens in street cricket. Why do we need an elite panel for it? Or for example, Clarke standing his ground yesterday. That would have been promptly noted by the ICC spin doctors as a decision in which the umpire had to judge. 2. How do they find out whether a correct decision was made or not? And questioning this would really open a huge Pandora's box for the ICC. Well, of course they use technology to figure out whether a correct decision was made or not. Definitely slow motion replays, and maybe aided by Hawkeye, super slow motion, snickometer, hot spot, that's how the ICC finds out whether those loonies in the middle made a correct decision. If that technology can be used to make up some farcical numbers to justify the presence of lunatics in the center of the field, why can't it be used to actually make the correct decisions in the first place, when all of these things take hardly a minute. If they don't want to make things complicated with all the toppings on the Pizza, at least let the umpire watch a slow motion replay. 90% of the blunders will be avoided with just one replay. This is huge cover up by the ICC for no reason except being asinine and obstinant. Let the truth out, let true skills decide the winner and please don't hurt the spectators intelligence with those crazy numbers, when in reality anyone who follows cricket will say that the umpires don't get more than 70-75% of their decisions correct, in which they are actually asked to judge something tricky.

[goose]

excellent!

[Anakin]

Good post. I thought they calculate the correct % only on the decisions given out. Not sure though, never saw any explanation of their process.

[DomainK]

Very good post indeed. Speed has some accountability issues for sure. It would take a blind man not to be able to see how umpires have been aligned with Australia for some time.

[Sachinism]

nice write up wherever u see statistics given by anyone, never take them on face value they always seem to look at things in ways which are just plain stupid

[bunny]

Great post!! Especially the 2nd point. If someone can mine the cricinfo ball by ball commentary and make a list of all the wrong/right decisions made that will be awesome.

[siddhu]

I agree. Its a big sham by ICC. How do u decide which team gets benefited from 50-50 decisions. Some umpires are more lenient than others. Some are absolutely strict about LBWs. Some are purely blind (ala Bucknor). So were does this 92.876% figure in tests and 96.231% figure in ODIs come from??? (borrowed from OP)

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Anakin]

Random number generator with range set between 95 & 99 ... easily doable in Microsoft Excel ... (or if you want go cheap ermm just whatever number you like for that month ... sorta like flavour of the month)

:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

[The Outsider]

Good post. I thought they calculate the correct % only on the decisions given out. Not sure though' date=' never saw any explanation of their process.[/quote'] That's partly what I was trying to address, Avi. There is no transparency. They can come up with any number and the rest of the world has not choice but to believe that number and no way of checking its veracity. In search of a better analogy, I would say it is like having an in house Income Tax department where one can fudge around with earnings and expenses to present a respectable face to the world in every scenario.

[The Outsider]

Random number generator with range set between 95 & 99 ... easily doable in Microsoft Excel ... (or if you want go cheap ermm just whatever number you like for that month ... sorta like flavour of the month)

:hysterical::hysterical: Here also, at least they can use some good random number generator algorithms rather than the one from Bill Gates.