technology
Bob Woolmer
FROM THE PAVILION
What a great Test match at Port Elizabeth – it had everything that a cricket connoisseur would want. Great bowling, gutsy batting, an English revival, confirmation of South Africa’s standing in world cricket and the fact that a game of cricket can last five days. Credit to the groundstaff at St George’s. They were under pressure after three years when the Test matches had become shorter and shorter.
For those who watched the second Test there was an incident that stirred the loins, such was the intensity. At 1330 CAT (central African time), with South Africa 48/2, Jacques Kallis has played forward to Phillip Tufnell and edged the ball low and quickly to Chris Adams at short gully. Adams swoops low and catches the ball with his fingertips, throws it up when he realises that the ball had stuck, and whoops with joy. He is quickly surrounded by his English team-mates and there are smiles all round.
Suddenly the exuberance is dulled by the realisation that Kallis is not walking off the field. Now, a batsman who is unsure about whether he is out or not has every right to stand. Kallis assured me that he was convinced that the ball hit the ground. Now came the drama. The England side now formally appeals to the umpire, Rudi Koertzen. As luck would have it, Rudi is unsighted by Tufnell’s follow-through. He then turn to his square-leg colleague Steve Bucknor from the West Indies, who intimates that he is also unsighted, this time by wicketkeeper Alec Stewart. (In my day the batsman would have asked the fielder “did you catch it” and the fielder would have been believed. Today this is not the case. Players in Test cricket very rarely walk as their financial future is at stake, among other considerations, such as national pride, winning, losing and so on.)
Of course, if the fielder had said “I am not sure” then the umpires would have been called in. Obviously, as it turns out, the etiquette of cricket has long since gone out of the window. It is now the era of technology. We have the third umpire and there are many TV cameras on the ground. SABC has the rights to these recordings that capture the various pictures from which the third umpire has to make his decision. Again, as luck would have it, none of the pictures are conclusive and after an interminable delay, Kallis is given in. Well, the air is blue on the field and there are plenty of heated words, most of which are directed at Kallis.
But there is more drama off the field meanwhile, because Sky TV has another angle which, everyone assures me, shows conclusively that Kallis is out. Eventually I get to see it. Third umpire Dave Orchard did not have the benefit of viewing this recording and, even if he did, I am not sure he would have found conclusive evidence either.
If technology is the way forward to help the beleaguered umpire then we must ensure that this technology is the best and the most productive. Haphazard use of the TV feed is not the fault of TV stations covering the cricket. Umpires should be consulted, with the aid of visual experts, and trial and error experimentation should take place. Let us use the example set. As soon as the field is set then special “pan eye type” cameras are put in place to pick up the low catch aimed at an area near the slips. The stillness of the camera is essential and a zoom function is available on all digital cameras these days. The other way, of course, is to go back to what the game is really all about and accept the word of the players.
The difference is, of course, that Kallis’s average started at 40.30 before the Test, he scored one in the first innings which reduced it to 39.41, and if he had been given out his average would have been 38.79. After his not-out second innings, his average is 41.39.
The public perceives you as a great Test match performer if you average in the 40s. With all the pressure on players to perform, it is no wonder that they leave decisions to technology.
Cricket has to understand that, in order to help the umpire, who is also more inclined to use technology because he is scared of making mistakes. Umpires realise that the future of players are in their hands. Microchips in the ball, bat and stumps (which will clearly show if the batsman has hit the ball, whether it is LBW or not) and specially operated remote cameras to be trained on the slip cordons and catchers will aid them in this job. Positioning of these cameras can be worked out and operated by remote control from a special area. Tagged to a state-of-the-art computer, the result can be almost instantaneous. This would prevent a repeat of a incident which took place during South Africa’s 1994 tour of Pakistan ,when the third umpire gave Dave Richardson run-out. At the end of the game he came into our dressing room and said, “I am sorry, I pressed the right button but the wrong light came on.”
This would then cover another aspect of the game and remove the headache of poor decision making. The scary thing is that some countries are still not using the pan eye camera for run-outs and stumpings. The scarier thing is that the International Cricket Council is still deciding on what technological route to take. In the never- ending battle to compete with soccer and other sports, cricket has to keep pace.
ENDS