Come back referral system, all is forgiven
Wouldn’t it be most fair for umpires to tend towards giving greater benefit of the doubt to a struggling team? I think it would, though I suspect in reality the opposite tends to happen. I mean, the Aussies never frickin’ seem to have their appeals turned down.
It is frankly inconceivable that Tendulkar’s catch off McIntosh was given without consultation with the third umpire after the precedent with Ryder’s catch off Dhoni (for which the on-field umpires conferred and consulted with the third umpire before giving it not-out). Both catches were equally dubious and the umpires should have treated them the same.
But what can you do but grumble. If the referral system was in place, nothing would have changed. Even though Tendulkar’s catch was equivalent to Ryder’s, if it had been referred by McIntosh, the third umpire wouldn’t have changed the on-field umpire’s call. It would be easier in a way however to be able to complain about been done in by “the system” than to feel hard done by inconsistent umpiring.
March 21st, 2009 at 11:58 pm
i support referrals…we would have won by innings margin…
March 22nd, 2009 at 9:26 am
i feel for tailenders who get rough decisions, esp when appeals and umpires look to finish games.
March 22nd, 2009 at 2:02 pm
i support referrals…we would have won by innings margin…
You think some important decisions went NZ’s way? Well, that’s only fair. However, if we are going to consider what difference the referrals might have made to the match we have to go back to the very first contentious decision, when Franklin was caught off his pad.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Ben, do you really believe that Guptill’s and Franklin’s decisions had a greater impact on the result than Taylor dropping Tendulkar on 13?
I do support referrals if the third umpire is allowed to use available technolgy and is allowed to be proactive in overturning the field umpire’s decisions. Also important is the attitude and quality of umpires. Taufel is supposed to be the best of the elite and we all saw the quality of the best. Bucknor, Harper and Hair clearly have poor attitudes and prejudices built up over long careers.
ICC clearly needs to introduce a process to rate umpires and build accountability apart from constantly renewing the elite pool by training younger umpires outside the pool.
March 22nd, 2009 at 5:47 pm
ben,
the referral system is certainly better than no referral system, but i think mcintosh’s wicket by no means a turning point in the matc
March 22nd, 2009 at 6:45 pm
Ben, do you really believe that Guptill’s and Franklin’s decisions had a greater impact on the result than Taylor dropping Tendulkar on 13?
No, no. If all the contentious decisions were called differently, the result would have been the same. (Including the fact that India had to bat twice.)
It just rankles that Ryder and Tendulkar’s catches were treated differently, irrespective of the result (though it wouldn’t bother me nearly as much if we’d won the game).
I actually had a whole other point I wanted to make in my post, but writing it last thing last night I forgot to include it. It had to do with the fact that while there are problems with the referral system (particularly regarding the access to technology by the third umpire), it does help even out inconsistencies in an umpire’s performance. Even under the referral system, McIntosh most likely would still have been given out, as the system isn’t designed to reverse borderline decisions, but at least the catch would have been given the same consideration as Ryder’s, which is what it deserved.
Arguably, a better option than the referral system would be to give umpires full access to technology. However, there still remains the problem that they might not use it.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:01 pm
the referral system is certainly better than no referral system, but i think mcintosh’s wicket by no means a turning point in the matc
Well, the game was lost in the first session on the first day, so it would be foolish to think that McIntosh’s wicket changed the result. However, if there was any chance that New Zealand might save the match, it really required a strong opening partnership. So in that respect it was an important point in the match.
But anyway, my point really was simply that Tendulkar’s catch should have been treated the same way as Ryder’s.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:03 pm
Ben, I too fear that that umpires may not use use technology even if given full access to it. That is one of the isues I was referring to when I wrote about poor attitudes. Daryl Harper’s lackadaisical implmententation of the referral system appears to stem from his passive resistance to it. Such resistance to technology appears to be built into the psyche of all existing umpires (I may be over generalising here) and it will require an entire new generation of umpires growing up with the new systems, for things to improve.
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Sorry. Got some facts wrong. It was McIntosh who was at the receiving end of a contentious decision, not Guptill. And it was Flynn who dropped Tendulkar and not Taylor.