Cricket is common sense

IN THE recent cricket Test between Pakistan and South Africa, batsman Shafiq of Pakistan, on 36, was given out leg-before by the umpire. The commentators all agreed that, from the slow-motion picture, it looked out. From these pictures you could clearly see the ball was swinging from the leg wicket towards the middle stump. The batsman decided to review this decision, and technology was used to determine whether the ball would indeed have hit the stumps. Now, the slow-motion review clearly showed that the ball was swinging; technology on the other hand, using a calculation, showed that the ball would have continued in the direction it was travelling in when it hit the pitch, and go on to miss the stumps completely.

The review was “not out”, and the commentators surprisingly but nonchalantly agreed that they were wrong. No, the technology was wrong in this instance. Common sense should have prevailed where the third umpire should’ve taken cognisance of the fact that we all saw that the ball swung. The commentators should’ve had the gumption to challenge the decision, thereby necessitating that this technology be improved. It appears that our commentators are paid to be subjective towards technological decisions given in sport, even though common sense says otherwise.

I recently came across an article about the death of common sense. Common sense will die out if learned people always forsake it in lieu of technology. We are more apt to believe and we trust results obtained through technology above those arising from common sense. We become so gullible that we distrust our natural instinct for the sake of acceptance of technology without question. We forsake our ability to think and reason, leaving us open to be easily deceived by the unscrupulous out there. Let us make common sense common again.