Virtual Eye not designed for decision referrals

Television’s cricket decision referral system (DRS), known in New Zealand as Virtual Eye, is used to titillate and keep everyone in suspense. It was initially produced by Ian Taylor’s company Animation Research as an entertainment package for television. Using Virtual Eye for the DRS was always going to require greater accuracy, more high-speed cameras, more operators and increased cost.

Which is why Taylor says, among other things, ‘‘no-one seems prepared to pay the additional expense needed. There appears to be no commercial incentive to spend the money because there is no plan’’.

So far, TV networks don’t see it as their responsibility to spend the extra money, when they are already paying for the entertainment tool that interests them.

If the International Cricket Council wants to use these tools as part of a decision referral system, then the feeling is that body ought to play an important role in the systems development and meet the additional costs.

Taylor remembers being called by the ICC just two weeks before a Sri Lankan home series against India. He said: ‘‘They told me they wanted our system to be used for the first-ever DRS, but we had to be accredited first. We were required to pay all additional costs associated with the accreditation, including flying extra people to Sri Lanka for the testing.

‘‘There had been no prior discussions with us about the appropriateness of the technology to do the job, nor what was expected of it – not a lot has changed since then.’’

Last year, the ICC allowed ball tracking to be done off the standard TV cameras at the one-day World Cup. That flies in the face of providing the most accurate tools possible.

Those cameras operate at 50 frames a second and are not even placed in the optimum positions. If you are going to use this technology for deciding matches you have to use the best equipment possible, not the least expensive. The cameras we are using here and in Australia track at 250fps. We wouldn’t use anything else for DRS.

Taylor says: ‘‘You can’t just rely on what computers come up with. A computer is only as accurate as the data it receives. I often give the example of how computers have put missiles down the wrong chimneys in Afghanistan.

‘‘When the America’s Cup people decided to use a tracking system for all umpiring decisions, they didn’t just pick up the TV tool that has been used for years. They put millions of dollars into developing one specifically for the job. They invited all the interested parties (crews, umpires etcetera), to have input, contributing and deciding on the technology they were going to use.

‘‘This meant everyone was 100 per cent behind it. The same process was followed by tennis. If idiosyncrasies develop, the group confers, explanations are sought and, where necessary, things get fixed.’’

Taylor feels covering cricket is more complex. It is a sport where the umpire should be the final arbiter. The amount of equipment, the preciseness required in locating the cameras for accurate ball tracking, and the predictive element associated with lbw decisions, makes it more challenging.

In December, when New Zealand beat Australia by seven runs in the second test in Hobart, the result came very close to being decided by a system (DRS) which officially, is meant to correct only the ‘‘howlers’’.

This is what happened. The umpire in the middle gave Australian No 11 batsman Nathan Lyon out lbw. The DRS came into play when the decision was challenged and overturned by the third umpire. The decision almost cost the Black Caps a test victory.

Taylor explained what had happened. ‘‘This was one of those worst-case scenario balls. First of all, the ball in question was shown by Virtual Eye to pitch outside legstump, even though 49 per cent of it had pitched in line. The DRS rules require that less than 50 per cent of the ball pitching on the stump shows up as pitching wholly outside the line. On the basis of that call, the umpires’ decision was overruled. That’s not a ‘howler’, it was less than a millimetre.’’

Remember that any doubt must go in favour of the batsman.

‘‘The interesting thing here was that if the ball had been declared as pitching in line we would have had to advise that, in this particular instance, we did not get enough information after the ball had pitched to be sure of the predictive line. In that case the umpires’ decision would have been upheld. In both cases, the batsman would have been out and Kiwi fans wouldn’t have had to go through the agony of almost losing that test.’’

Taylor believes a group of umpires needs to be trained as specialists and certified to operate as DRS third umpires.

Many won’t like to hear this, but the DRS does open the potential for further corruption within the game for betting, match fixing and general cheating.

By the way, those operating the system during the Hobart test were Kiwis.