Ever since Joe Root’s dismissal on Day 3 of the IND vs ENG 4th Test, a can of worms has opened up. Several, including England skipper Ben Stokes, have asked for the umpire’s call to be removed. Others have been skeptical of the Decision Review System (DRS), and Root’s controversial LBW has only fed into that.
But what’s the answer to all this? Does the ICC need to do away with the umpire’s call?
What many don’t know is that the umpire’s call has been implemented by the DRS creators themselves. The people who have created the technology are themselves not 100% sure. While they might surprise someone, it is for the best. You see, no technology can be completely certain; tennis uses something similar in Hawkeye, and that too has been known to create some controversies.
No uprooting, but a revamp is required
What DRS needs is a revamp. In this series and the ongoing PSL 2024, we have seen many irregularities. A straight ball suddenly spun in the PSL, while Ashwin’s off-spin ball, which saw a puff of dust and seemed to turn further, went straight on to hit the stumps.
What the ICC needs to do is instill in the players and fans that DRS is more hit than miss. Now, how to do that?
One option is to improve umpiring, not on-field but off-it. Instead of using normal umpires for DRS reviews, the ICC needs special umpires who have been trained just for reviews. Why do they need to do it? We often see third umpires get duped up by non-existent edges and noises. Some have even failed to distinguish where the ball hit the bat first or the pad.
Now let’s get to the pitching. A big point raised after Root’s dismissal was that more than 50% of the ball wasn’t pitching in line. What the ICC needs to do is settle the case for the impact. A ball is either in line or isn’t. You don’t need technology to judge the impact; every umpire can see it using a slow-motion camera.
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The unfortunate thing is that despite making these changes, what can the ICC do if the technology shows a ball moving big or not at all? Even if we take Root’s dismissal as an example, one can say the impact and pitching on hitting can be either 0 or 100, but how do you determine what happens once the ball has hit the player?
The only thing the ICC can do is make it clear why and how these DRS decisions are taken. Using the umpire’s call for hitting the stumps is fine, but using it for impact and pitching doesn’t make any sense and further confuses everyone, barring the technology makers.
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