Where was Hawk Eye?

 

 

Human errors from officials have always marred what constitutes a ‘fair’ result. Now dawns an age where technology can level the playing field, if only the administrators would care to notice…

“Justice Is Lost / Justice Is Raped Justice Is Gone / Pulling Your Strings Justice Is Done / Seeking No Truth Winning Is All / Find it So Grim So True / So Real”

--METALLICA, And Justice for All

On a cricket field, the closest thing to God is perhaps the umpire. An umpire’s fingers can swing the fate of a match and player in an instant and the repercussions of their decisions reverberate long after the dust settles on the pitch. The only hitch is that these ‘Gods’ are fallible. And therein lies the rub that is jeopardising modern cricket, nay sport. Officiating inconsistency, umpiring incompetence and judging errors are not new to sport and they aren’t unique to cricket. But the manner in which the Indian cricket team was robbed of what might have been a winning opportunity at the Sydney Test against Australia raises serious doubts about just two human umpires in the middle being able to conduct a match in all fairness in this modern, cut throat and big bucks era of cricket.

The rub of the green went against the Indians at an alarming rate in the match. And the old debate of how much of a role can technology can play as a saviour of fair play and correct judgment has again reared its head. It’s an idea whose time has come, and administrators burying their heads in bureaucratic sands are only delaying the inevitable. When cricket first got the Third Umpire about a decade and a half ago, his decisions were limited to judging run outs and stumpings from instant replays from different angles. Gradually, more powers were allotted to him including checking if a fielder had touched the boundary rope while fielding a ball or taken a catch cleanly. As audiences around the world watched the power of simple technology (the instant replay) transforming the game, they realised that there was no reason any team should have to put up with umpiring howlers in a match. Today, technology has gone further—there’s a ‘snickometer’ which can tell you if a batsman nicked a ball or not, there’s ‘hawk-eye’ that can project trajectory of deliveries for lbw decisions, there’s super slo-mo that can capture the nuances of a delivery, and there’s ‘hot spot’ which can show where the ball might have hit a batsman’s bat or body—and the scope of its involvement in decision making has naturally become wider.

But the reluctance to adopt technology comes from two fronts, and none of them has to do with the efficacy of the science behind the innovations.

The opposition is based on the fact that more technology will reduce the authority of the men in the middle and the second, arguably more flimsy, justification being that such umpiring errors are a ‘way of life’ and ‘it happens’. Try telling the Indian team that.

Both the doubts are unfounded and only highlight the bureaucratic urge of administrators to retain status quo. FIFA, football’s governing body, has historically opposed most innovations intended to improve officiating (from two referees on the field to instant replays). Lately though even they have turned around and are ac tively experimenting with a ball that has a chip embedded in it which will help determine whether a ball crossed the goal line or not. How Germany would have loved the technology in the final of the 1966 World Cup when Geoff Hurst hit the winner for England off the goal bar. Evidence till date remains inconclusive as to whether Hurst’s shot landed behind the goal line. Maninder Singh, the former Indian spinner is very clear in his views; he expressed to TSI, "I used to initially think that too much of involvement should not be allowed but after (the Sydney Test) match I think that in such situations where there is a need and the middle umpire is in doubt, he should refer to the third umpire for sure.” He urges the “ICC to take some strong steps in this direction”.

Apart from technology, one other aspect that could change the face of officiating efficiency is allowing the players to appeal or challenge on field decisions. Cricket has been talking about it lately but tennis has already introduced it (players have two challenges every set and one in a tie break) since the 2006 US Open Grand Slam. The NFL has a ‘coach’s challenge’ where the coach of a team can challenge an official's call and send it for review. The game of tennis and American football are no less intense and it’s hard to imagine why something similar cannot find a place in cricket.

The game has always sought immunity citing its ‘gentleman’s game’ image, as experts have claimed that appeals by fielders for a dismissal are often genuine and their word can be taken as cue by the umpires. If ‘diving’ can wreck football, who is to say play acting does not have a cricketing version? And surely, the umpires can’t hope for the players to do their appealing with a polygraph attached. Vineet Malhotra, Anchor with Neo Sports still believes discretion is the key when it comes to granting the right to appeal on field. He explains to TSI, “A player must learn to distinguish between a right and a wrong decision and appeal accordingly. When that does not happen then it is the umpire’s duty to step in.”

As sport grows more competitive, anything and everything that reduces the margin of error is welcome—and technology is the most obvious solution staring at everyone’s face. Of course, it's never either /or as Nikhil Naz, a sports anchor on a leading news channel put it to TSI, “One can’t rely on technology alone because it can be as wrong as human beings. It will never be that we will only have technology and no umpire. It’s the nature of the game, we need both to be part of the game.” Sports across the world are accepting it and it's time cricket took notice too. If John McEnroe, who’s perhaps individually questioned the most number of judgment calls in the history of sport, were told that technology cannot solve some of the on-field decision inequities we have today he might have retorted, ‘You cannot be serious’!