MORE QUESTIONS THAN ANSWERS
Peter Hayter on the perils of using DRS
Strange”; that was as near to outright criticism as England captain Joe Root wanted to go when asked about the eccentric performance of the DRS system following his side’s defeat in the second Test in Adelaide this week.
“There were a number of decisions overturned. It was strange,” Root said, “a few where we were out in the middle in the field and we thought that it’s just regulation ... out.
“There is always going to be those questions asked about DRS – is the technology in the right place, could it be better?” said Root.
“But we have to get on with it because it’s there for this series. If we moan and use it as an excuse then it’s not going to help us.
“From our point of view we have just got to try and eliminate the chance of it going against us.”
Well said, especially when Root knows full well that, compared to his decision to field after winning the toss, the woefully short bowling of his fourman attack on day one and the failure of his batsmen to get anywhere near the minimum score required to compete in reply to Australia’s 442-8 declared, public criticism of umpiring decisions and the technology would immediately allow the word ‘whingeing’ to be placed snugly alongside ‘Pom’.
But while any complaints the Australians may have had on that score were mainly confined to the over-eager use of it by skipper Steve Smith that cost his side both of their second innings reviews in quick succession, all were in rare agreement that the system in place once again showed just how far from flawless it remains, clearly too much for the trust currently placed in it to be justified.
At a conservative count, decisions made by DRS threw up at least half a dozen moments of genuine controversy, the last being the “thin” sound picked up by Snicko that did for Chris Woakes from the second ball of the final day even though Hot Spot showed no mark of ball against bat as it made its way to wicketkeeper Tim Paine.
And while that incident once again raised the issue of Snicko’s reliability, two others caused even louder debate and for the very good reason that, to the naked eye of some of the most experienced and best-qualified observers, past and present, both seemed not merely borderline, nor a matter of judgment, opinion or balance of probabilities, but just plain wrong.
The second was the reversal of the LBW decision against Alastair Cook off the bowling of Nathan Lyon, which had originally been turned down by the on-field umpire Chris Gaffaney.
The first, and arguably the real gamechanger, was the overturning of the same official’s decision to raise the finger when James Anderson appeared to have swerved the perfect late swinger from over the wicket into the front pad of left-hander Shaun Marsh.
Cook had already benefitted from Smith’s decision not to call for a review to a ball from Josh Hazlewood that the umpire, batsman, bowler, everyone else on the field and watching on TV thought was comfortably spearing down the leg side.
And how the Barmies laughed when replays on the giant screen then showed the ball not merely clipping the outside of the stump but hitting the inside of leg and possibly middle to.
But if that merely suggested all of us
At a conservative count, decisions made by DRS threw up at least half a dozen moments of genuine controversy
should go immediately to Specsavers (other opticians are available), Cook’s eventual dismissal confirmed it.
For full commentary, we go to BBC’s Test Match Special, where Jonathan Agnew is with Michael Vaughan:
Agnew: “Lyon round the wicket, floats it up, oh there’s an appeal for Leg Before Wicket…and umpire Gaffaney says no. What are they going to do this time?
“Steve Smith, it’s over to you… he’s got his arms out saying what do you think? Well, I thought it was leg side I must say but, oh, they’re reviewing it..
Vaughan: “It’s just a bit of panic, I feel.”
Agnew: “Well I thought, it didn’t feel out to me if I’m honest..
Vaughan: “He’s just lost his balance, that’s the only concern for me… he fell over. Agnew: “Has it pitched outside leg?” Vaughan: “Yep”. Agnew: “I’m sure it has done. It didn’t look right to me. I reckon that’s pitched outside leg by some distance.
“A little smack of desperation, here, I think, here unless I’ve got it completely wrong.”
Vaughan: “Well, the worst case scenario for Cook would be umpire’s call, and the ump’s given it not out.”
Agnew: “Yeah. I reckon its pitched outside leg… we’ll see. It took a bit of dust.” Vaughan: “No inside edge.” Agnew: “Nothing on Snicko. He’s got a good stride in.”
Vaughan: “It’s certainly not going
over, though.” Agnew: “Well, if this has not pitched outside leg stump I’m going to hand over to Alison Mitchell, that’s how confident I am. Let’s have a look…. Oh, it’s pitched in line … it’s spun and it’s hitting…. Well, I am very surprised at that.
“I think they are going to be studying that for a while because the replays looked to show that pitched outside leg stump, but the computer has got it comfortably pitching in line.”
Later Phil Tufnell called it: “An iffy decision,” explaining, “I saw my old mate Embers (Middlesex teammate John Emburey) and he said, ‘Well, if I’d have appealed for all those I’d have 4,500 extra wickets’.”
But, in the admittedly dodgy context of maybes, the most significant example of questionable DRS efficiency had already played its part, back in Australia’s first innings, when Shaun Marsh, on 29, felt the thud on his front pad from a ball bowled by England’s highest wicket-taker that looked for all the money like it would hit middle stump no higher than three-quarters of the way up. In any event, even if, by some glitch, the technology disagreed with that view, the slim possibility of “umpire’s call” would surely be upheld. Only, the DRS somehow found enough extra bounce in the Adelaide surface to predict it would have flown harmlessly over the top. And predict is the operative word, of course. Some genuinely believe that, by definition, the predictive element factored into all DRS decisions can never be better than an educated guess and sometimes far worse than that. So why, they argue, should it be used it to overrule the opinion of the onfield umpire? And when it comes to using it down under, where the system is supplied by a New Zealand company called Virtual Eye, rather than the Hawk-Eye technology used elsewhere, the plot thickens. On England’s 20102011 Ashes tour, after Virtual Eye’s Eagle Eye 3-D analysis was blamed for a couple of dodgy calls, Hawk-Eye’s founder Dr. Paul Hawkins claimed their system was nine times less reliable than his.
At the time, even Virtual Eye’s Managing Director admitted his company’s graphics should be used for entertainment purposes only.
“We provide graphics for TV based on the belief that the game doesn’t depend on it,” Ian Taylor admitted, “and that if there’s a mistake made, there’s no major consequence.”
In that context, whether or not the outcome of any of the aforementioned DRS predictions constituted a “major consequence”, events at Adelaide this week raise the questions of whether Virtual Eye’s system has actually improved in the last seven years and, if not, why on earth is it being used at all?
More widely, they have done nothing to ease continuing doubts over whether any form of prediction, unless it is proven to be 100 per cent spot-on every time, should be regarded as more trustworthy than that made by an onfield umpire, standing 22 yards away with the best view in the house.