In a thought-provoking analysis of the game he loves, The Bug's
cricket writer, Don Gordon-Brown, several years ago used his Bug column
to give batting has-been Donald George Bradman an almighty pasting for giving
the third umpire concept the green light.
In the second part of a series, the man many believe to have been exceptionally
unlucky never to have captained Australia, explains what has to be done
to make the third umpire a legitimate tool in international cricket.
My biggest bugbear with my initials-sake over electronic umpire was simple: it takes away that intricate balance of luck any batsman deserves.
Up until the third eye became a regular fixture, a batsman who had been well and truly run out or stumped was given the benefit of the doubt. With some umpires' eyesights or nervous dispositions about making an error that could cost them the next Test, this generally meant anywhere from a mid-strip waddle, a la Tubby Taylor, to a Ponting photo-finish slide through the dust.
I think poor old senile Bradman has taken the view that a good throw from backward square where, say, the Australian batsmen are attempting a cheeky seventh run on the fielding and throwing style of a Phil Tuffnel, deserves reward. And if all other things were even, I couldn't agree more.
But the cricket playing field has never been level.
There are a dozen other ways a poor willowist can be sent trundling back
to the pavilion when he hasn't been given the benefit of the doubt. And
make no mistake – most international umpires, regardless of their reputation,
make mistakes over and over again.
Even the best ones are just like pimply teenage boys on their first date. Sooner or later, they're going to put their finger up. They just can't help themselves. Even confirmed bachelor Dickie Bird, who knew exactly what to do to stay an international cricket umpire for decades, could drop his guard and realise with an embarrassed chuckle that he'd put the finger up without even knowing it.
Of course, international cricket umpiring should be easy. The rules are few and easily applied.
1. Only give out an LBW if you're certain the ball would have hit all six stumps - three at each end.
2. Only give a batsman out caught if the ball is taken on the boundary. This excludes the bump ball and those catches in the cordon any closer than point. Some of those outswingers go a hell a long way with those doctored ball these days.
3. Even after a batsman's furniture's has been well and truly disturbed, give him every opportunity to walk off of his own volition, as you weigh up the possibility that a sudden gust of wind might have blown the stumps over.
4. Never give out a gloved-behind attempted hook because invariably the ball has hit the shoulder or arm.
5 (a). Never give out a bat-pad catch, because invariably there's been no contact with bat or glove.
5 (b). If you're really bored and feel you just have to give a bat-pad where invariably there's been no contact, only do so after a spectacular non-catch, as in Boonie's effort to give Shane "One Finger Salute" Warne that non-hat-trick a few seasons back.
Them's the rules and most top umpires play by them.
But every now and then, under that hot stinking sun, some bad decisions are going to be made. The average per Test over the last 10 years has been about 15.
Umpires don't realise it themselves but subconsciously – or unconsciously in the case of Alan Shepherd – they're thinking to themselves: "I'm getting good money to stand out here looking a real dork in my tie, so I'd better do something positive real soon."
And saying "not out!" over and over again like they're paid to do is not positive cricket.
So just wait long enough and that finger's going to go up on a dubious Shane Warne LBW (and aren't they all) or an Elliott hook gone awry (and don't they all).
The trouble is: these guys in their penguin suits can cost a professional player his livelihood with their shonky decisions.
Look at Mathew Elliott, for example. But not for too long 'cos he's an ugly bastard, isn't he?
He's doing okay again now, but think back to his first Test innings in Australia. He was given out for a duck caught behind when the TV replay clearly showed the ball flicking the bottom third of his nose as it went through to Courtney Brown. If he hadn't been a Victorian, that shonky umpiring decision could easily have been the end of his international career.
Look closer to the umpiring mistakes in the recent Ashes series. One of the fairest players in the world is Steve Waugh - but you could tell by the shake of the head as he walked off that he'd been harshly done in each and every one of his Ashes dismissals. And the 36 before then as well. Closer to home, the three Kiwi Tests were riddled with dubious decisions.
So my view is simple: if we're going to use the third electronic umpire, let's extend the use of such late 20th Century technology to take the guesswork and human failings out of all the other methods of dismissal.
1. First things first. Who was the fuck-knuckle who decided that a pair of gloves were part of the bat. A bat handle is an inch and a bit thick; padded battling gloves are much wider. Change the rule so that gloves are not out. About 94.6 percent of all dubious decisions since the Second World War would be removed with this simple rule change.
2. The bat-pad to close in fielders and the faint feather through to
the keeper.
Surely the technology exists – has in fencing for yonks – to build
a lightbulb in the top of the bat handle which glows when a bat's willow
has made contact with leather. This of course would necessitate a rules
rewrite to counter cunning batsmen who sneakily run their bat handle up
under the sleeve after feathering a ball through to the keeper.
Atherton, out deliberately obscuring handlebulb, caught Kasprowitz, 31,
would soon start to creep its way into the scorebooks.
3. The ball pitching outside the line in dubious LBWs.
What's wrong with a portable Cyclops machine in the bowler's end umpire's
hat which pings when the ball pitches outside the line. Supplement this
by painting the pitch stump to stump with a distinct colour, perhaps ant-hilll
red as at Roland Garrous.
Then the third umpire could determine very quickly if the ball had pitched
outside the line by a video close-up of the mark left on the pitch. Especially
when the third umpire is where he belongs - up in the chocolate airship
right over the centre square - the perfect spot to judge whether balls have
pitched in-line, whether they've swung or spun too much to miss the stumps,
or whether the batsman's been struck outside the line of off-stump when
not playing a shot. Sure, it's true that Warnie 's strike rate will more
than halve, but he's such a sook would anyone really care?
4. The LBW that would have gone over the top. Another cyclops on the hat on the head of the umpire at square leg solves that one. The poor bastard's got to have something to do now that stumpings and runouts are no longer his responsibility.
Already, I can hear the knockers' murmurs: how can we keep the game flowing while all this videotape analysis is going on in the Whitman's Chockie Ship. Cricket? Flowing? C'mon, Reader, C'mon!
It'd work like this. The field umpires would never turn to the electronic ump as at present. Takes too long. As in decades past, they'll make their judgments by eye and with all the human fraility they can muster. Once the electronic umpire has realised a batsman has been given out by mistake (roughly half), the unfairly treated batter would return to the middle at the fall of a subsequent wicket, and the "successful" bowler's figures adjusted accordingly.
It'll make umpires' stats more intriguing too. Steve Randall. 27 Tests. 231 decisions. Accuracy: 44.36. Great umpires, like great batsmen, would strive for a 50 plus mark.
The only drawback from employing all these methods is that a Test match where batsmen are only given out when they're finally, really out, would last by my reckoning about 13 days.
