Referral system hits domestic one dayers
The domestic season in England is well under way and in the Friends Provident one day series, where the players play in pyjamas and have silly American Football style names like “Sussex Sharks” and “Yorkshire Phoenix”. Well the one day game has taken a turn for the bizarre by the introduction of the “referral” system, whereby each team can refer decisions made by the on-field umpire to the off-field third umpire, who has the benefit of the television replay.
The rules surrounding the system are:
- Each team has 2 referrals per innings
- The referral may be made by either the captain or the batsman
- If the decision is overturned, the team is not “charged” a referral
- There are specific rules for what happens, depending on what type of appeal is being made. For example, if it is an appeal over a catch, the 3rd umpire may only adjudicate on whether the batsman has it, and not whether or not the ball was taken cleanly (i.e., the on-field umpire has said it was / was not caught cleanly). In the case of LBW, the 3rd umpire will be required to decide if the ball pitched in-line or outside off-stump, whether it will go on to hit the stumps and whether the batsman has hit it. Hawkeye may not be used.
- The appeal to refer must be made within in a reasonable amount of time after the initial decision - i.e., promptly.
Despite this being “on trial” during the Sunday league, it is really an inevitable step towards making television replays mainstream. Unfortunately, though, I believe the half-way measures will harm the game in the interim period, and really, the ECB need to make a decision one way or another. The danger with the referral system is obviously that it calls in to question the integrity of the umpires, and goes a certain length to undermining their standing on the pitch. Obviously, a limit was required, otherwise every decision would be referred to the third umpire. There will be a certain amount of skill and belief involved in deciding which decisions to refer.
Is this is a good thing? Personally, I think not. Not only does it add a massive level of complexity to the one day game, which is traditionally already tricky for the uninitiated to understand, not to mention all the speculation over “will they won’t they” refer the decision, but in my opinion it takes something away from the game. As long as I have been playing and watching cricket, bad or unlucky umpiring decisions have always been part of the game. You might get a shocker, or, you might not be awarded an obvious dismissal, but it happens and, in the grand scheme of things, it always evens itself out. Importantly, however, it dilutes the ruling of the game. This takes a certain amount of power out of the Umpires’ hands and places it elsewhere. No doubt that before long we will have statistics on who are the most statistically incorrect umpires - i.e., those Umpires whose decisions get referred most often, and , of course, the frequency of decisions being overturned.
In general, the standard of umpiring in domestic and International cricket is very, very high. These guys stand on a field for hours at a time and are expected to maintain their concentration at all times. They will make mistakes and it’s to be expected. I don’t have a problem with using the technology and certainly, we’ve now become accustomed to run out decision routinely being deferred to the third umpire.
Alison Mitchell, writing for Test Match Special also makes a very interesting point on what the umpires can (and can’t) do in respect of no-balls:
Also the TV umpire is not allowed to judge on no-balls. It means he could find himself in a bizarre situation where an lbw appeal is referred by the batsman, all conditions of the lbw law are satisfied, except that on replay it is noticed that the delivery should have been called a no-ball.
Bad luck. Too late. The TV umpire has to give the batsman out, even though the no-ball is clear for all to see.
Is that not going to look a little silly? The man overseeing the new rule, Alan Fordham, cricket operations manager of the ECB, tells me that they didn’t want to open the floodgates on batsmen questioning the legitimacy of deliveries.
Fine. But if a no-ball is clearly visible to the TV umpire in the course of judging a dismissal, surely it makes a mockery of the game for him to ignore it.
Absolutely! How ridiculous.
Surely an alternative trial would have been extended the style of dismissals that the umpires could refer to the television replays. For example, if they’re not sure about an LBW or whether a batsman hit the ball, then they can defer it. I don’t like the thought of players being able to “over-rule” the umpire.
Tags: cricket, dickie-bird, its-just-not-cricket, one-day, One-Day-cricket, referral, television-replay, umpires, umpiringRelated Stories
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