Referral system need not be perfect

It just needs to significantly improve upon the instant decision-making of the field umpires, and there's enough evidence of that already

These days you can't open a sports section without encountering an Aussie deriding the review of umpiring decisions introduced as a trial in the India-Lanka series. First it was Richie Benaud, followed by Ian Chappell, then Brett Lee joined the chorus. Perhaps that's not surprising because over the past few years of Australian domination over world cricket, they have benefited the most from umpiring bloopers.

What's surprising though is India's - or at least the Indian Test team's - reluctance to give it a thumbs up, considering how they were done in by Messrs Bucknor & Benson in Sydney. Perhaps when you have the five seniormost players struggling to justify their places in the side, it's natural to clutch at anything that will divert attention from their non-performance.

Let's first have a quick glance at what's happened in the series so far. There have been 30 odd referrals made to the third umpire, and in about 10 of those cases, the decision has been overturned. Out of those 10, only one or at the most two can be called dubious. And both of those instances came in the first Test, where the umpires were presumably still getting to grips with the new system.

The first dubious call made by Rudi Koertzen, the third umpire in the first Test, was to rule Dilshan not out after the field umpire had given him out caught behind. The TV replay could not catch the faint snick, which was later confirmed by the snickometer, a gadget that has not yet been made accessible to the third umpire.

Koertzen probably went by his umpiring instinct to give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman, forgetting that the referral system required him to stand by the field umpire's decision unless he had clinching evidence to the contrary. Since there was no way to definitely make out, without the snickometer, whether Dilshan had nicked the ball, Koertzen should have given the benefit of the doubt to the field umpire and not the batsman - and this is the principle that has been followed with admirable consistency by the third umpires in the following two Tests.

The second error made by Koertzen was to give Sehwag out LBW to Murali. He apparently did not see the ball brushing the front pad before deflecting onto the other pad in front of the stumps. This was just carelessness on the part of Koertzen, and not really a reflection on the referral system.

On the other hand, there have been at least eight occasions when the third umpire's review has corrected a blooper by the field umpire. In the first Test itself, we saw Rahul Dravid given not out after a big bat-pad and then Sachin Tendulkar standing his ground after the ball hit his thumb and bat handle to balloon up after a sweep shot, which was only visible from behind the batsman.

Would the game have been any better if these howlers by the field umpire had gone uncorrected? In fact, referrals will probably encourage batsmen to "walk" in order to avoid the ignominy of standing around pretending to be not out while the third umpire takes a relook. It would then remove one of cricket's long-standing double standards - fielders are looked upon as cheats when they claim catches after the ball has obviously come off the ground, but no such question of integrity is raised when a batsman stays at the crease even when he knows he has edged the ball big-time.

There have also been a number of LBW decisions given by the third umpires in the series which I believe can improve the game in a fundamental way. In most of these cases, the field umpire has been right to give the batsman the benefit of the doubt, and the third umpire has also been right in overturning the decision in the face of evidence beyond reasonable doubt that the batsman was LBW, judging from a freeze of where the ball landed and then its point of impact
with the batsman.

For almost a hundred years of Test cricket, batsmen have enjoyed the benefit of the doubt in LBWs at the expense of bowlers. Let's face it - there will be some doubt in most LBW calls, and in the past umpires only gave a batsman out if the ball looked like hitting the middle stump. As it is, the three stumps are not too big a target for the bowler; if you narrow that down to the middle stump and not even the top part of that, you can imagine how small that target becomes.

It's not surprising batsmen have tended to develop techniques with the bat thrust forward as a second line of defence, or even the first defence in cases where you see the bat safely tucked behind the pad so as not to get a nick while pretending to be playing a shot. (Offering no shot increases the chances of getting out LBW.)

So, instead of shaking their heads after every LBW referral goes against them, the Indian batsmen would do well to look at how they're batting. In fact, if the referral system will force batsmen to play more with their bats than their pads, it will remove a subtle form of cheating that's been going on all these years, and fundamentally alter the game in a positive way. And it will also level the playing field somewhat for bowlers. As it is, with flatter wickets, more powerful bats, and protective gear for batsmen, there's little that bowlers have had going for them in Test cricket in recent years.

Finally, to return to the Aussie criticisms, they're easily countered. The main one opposes the use of technology unless it is 100 percent accurate. Even a mission to the moon will have a margin of error. To expect cricket technology to be 100 percent is unreasonable and betrays a lack of understanding of technology. The real point is whether technology - and more pertinently, a review made by an experienced third umpire based on the additional evidence provided by technology - is likely to occasionally correct a wrong decision made in a split second by a field umpire with the aid of only his naked eye and gut instinct.

A new point raised by Ian Chappell is that of equity. His argument is that if the top three batsmen are selfish and use up the side's three failed referrals for the innings, there would be nothing left for the remaining batsmen. Now batsmen can be selfish in other ways too, such as scoring slowly when the side needs quick runs, but that's something for the team to resolve, because selfishness is a malady in any team game. Players should only go for a referral when they have a good chance of overturning a decision, and the Lankans have shown by their success rate in referrals that they did their homework on this much better than the Indians.

c_sumit@dnaindia.net