Three england referrals in the 2nd innings of the first test of the new Windies series. One went well, one was stupid, one went bad. Two made Tony Hill look like a prat, one did so for Strauss
So the first one - Smith goes LBW after Hill says not out. Hawkeye replays confirm facts that the ball pitched inline, and hit him inline, very low. I'm not sure why it wasn't given out in the first place. To me I think it looked like due to the way Smith hopped back, that the ball appeared to be going down leg. Back on hawkeye this was blatantly not the case. So after following some clear evidence, there was the need to over rule a *BAD* call by the umpire. Strike one for the referral system.
Middle one - Strauss, don't be a fool.
Third one - So here's the real contention. Sarwan given out with the ball appearing to be clipping top of middle and leg. The Windies referral shows that the ball is completely legit, and is going reasonably high. Without the predicted part of Hawkeye, who knows where it's going. But Harper decided that if he was standing at the non-strikers end, he would probably have had enough doubt to say not out. And that's where the system fell apart. It's not his place to say there was enough doubt. It's his job to over ride *blatant* errors. Whilst the ball may not have hit, it was a reasonable decision from the on-field umpire, correct or not. Harper should have upheld the decision based on how both me and Nasser have read the system. Even if the ball was going over by half an inch, it still should have been upheld on principle. And even more galling was that Hawkeye said it WOULD have hit anyway, so the overrule was probably wrong anyway. What a shambles!
So first off the system worked because of FACTS. LOVELY BEAUTIFUL FACTS. in the second time there was F.U.D! Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt!
Shouldn't the system only deal with undeniable truths? If so, that also means there's surely no need to actually have a third umpire watching it.
Give the on-field umpire some sort of audio feed from Hawkeye...
Bowler runs up and... Bowls.
BEEP! - No front foot no ball.
LAAA! - Ball pitched in line.
BONG! - Ball hit in line.
PING! - Microwave popcorn is ready.
Give the umpire instantly processed audible facts about what has definitlely happened direct form hawkeye. With the right noises within a second or so, the first referral would have never happened, as Hill would have KNOWN what happened for sure. And the third would also never have happened as you'd have not been allowed to refer it as it was a fair decision.
Sorted. Respect due.
Friday 6 February 2009
Referral ballsups already
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4 comments:
How does Hawkeye work? How can it accurately predict the path of the ball when it does not know what kind of delivery the bowler was trying? The umpire now is just there to call no balls and hold the jumpers.
It's presumably only got the data after the ball pitches to calculate from, and if you're bowling full, that might only be a few feet, if that, so it's going to be dubious as to how much faith you can have in your formulas. Would be interested in seeing their trajectory equations and matrices.
I wouldn't think that the type of delivery should matter at all, but they'r egoing to have to be making approximations, like saying the ball is round, with presumably no seam either in order to extrapolate what it's done since the bounce...
Well if the ball is swinging a lot it will make a big difference. How does Hawkeye whether a delivery is a legspinner, topspinner or wrong'un? How does Hawkeye know when Harbajhan is bowling his fiendish douchera?
They might be thinking of using it to assist the third umpire to make decisions. As it is now, apart from ruling on obvious mistakes, I dont know how the third umpire can have a better view of the ball trajectory on an LBW than the umpire who is at ground level.
The balls trajectory is what it is. You can use your maths to derive approximations for how ever many orders of motion you want, to get a good idea of what the ball is going to do. In physics there's no such thing as an off break, just the mechanics of a ball moving.
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