Williamson gets DRS all wrong, yet again

‘ The onus ends up being on the captain because he’s the only one who can really refer it, so the captain has to take the information from those around him and sometimes you get it right.’ HASHIM AMLA

OK, let’s at least excuse Kane Williamson from one of the woes that currently confounds him.

Winning the toss – or losing it, in the case of the New Zealand captain – is literally out of his hands. The opposing South African captains have made the calls on tour and have had the ridiculous good – and random – fortune of calling correctly on eight consecutive occasions.

The statistical likelihood of that occurring is 0.0039 per cent.

But that could also prove to be a reasonable estimate of how likely the Black Caps leader and his team-mates are to get a judgement call of when and how to use the Decision Review System correctly after an appalling day of appeals on the opening day of the third test in Hamilton yesterday.

With South Africa battling for a solid foothold at 28-2 in the 11th over at Seddon Park, Neil Wagner had an lbw appeal turned down from his first ball. After a brief consultation between those seemingly in the know, Williamson opted not to ask for a look via video, which proved erroneous as replays indicated JP Duminy would have been adjudged out.

The next DRS blunder came when Williamson opted to challenge the not out decision on another Duminy lbw appeal, this time from Matt Henry’s bowling, to a ball that clearly pitched outside leg stump.

When it seemed impossible, worse was still to come.

Wagner pondered whether he had Proteas captain Faf du Plessis trapped in front soon after lunch. The initial appeal, which was far from convincing, was turned down. Wagner then seemed to push a reluctant Williamson to ask for a look via the DRS, which showed the ball hit du Plessis’s bat.

It meant the Black Caps had used up their two unsuccessful challenges by the end of the 29th over – meaning 51 overs without access to another one.

That looked costly when in Wagner’s next over he appeared to get a faint outside edge from du Plessis through to keeper BJ Watling, but the South African skipper was given not out and the hosts were unable to challenge the decision.

‘‘Obviously we didn’t get them all right today but, that’s the way it goes with DRS,’’ said Henry – while missing the fact they didn’t get any right.

‘‘It can be frustrating but we’ll get another chance with it later on.’’ Well, not for some while.

Henry tried to describe the decision-making process.

‘‘The bowler’s probably got the initial key to go up, then the keeper’s got a pretty good line of it as well. It kinda goes from the bowler to the keeper and then from there you’ve probably just gotta go with a bit of gut. It all happens pretty quick.’’

South African batsman Hashim Amla admitted ‘‘there’s a lot of guesswork involved’’.

‘‘You’re taking the opinions of a lot of people. The onus ends up being on the captain because he’s the only one who can really refer it, so the captain has to take the information from those around him and sometimes you get it right, and I think most times you get it wrong.’’