ICC and PCB - The 'unfathomables'

The ICC announced last week that the Cricket Committee recommended the DRS be used in all test series as well as the 2011 World Cup.

Yet again, the ICC will be conducting an experiment in their flagship event. Before the 2006 Champions Trophy in India, the ICC announced that reviews would be introduced at the tournament and, if successful, would be in force during the 2007 World Cup.

Thankfully, sanity prevailed a couple of months later, and the executive board threw that idea out of the window.

The DRS has so far, to the best of my knowledge, never been used in limited over internationals (50 overs or 20 overs). Without trialling it in bilateral series or other 3-4 nation tournaments, it would be downright stupid to use a World Cup to introduce the reviews system.

We still don't know how much time would be spent in a typical 50 over game on both teams appealing against the umpires' decisions. Wouldn't that result in the game being stretched beyond the normal 3 hr 30 mins / 3 hr 45 mins duration?

The ICC wants the broadcaster to shell out the money for the technology used. Maybe the right way to 'sell' the concept to the broadcaster is that they would have at least 10 minutes more per innings of telecast time, and thus something like 30-40 more advertisement slots.

The ICC's argument is that poorer (associate & affiliate) countries that don't benefit from the DRS shouldn't have to subsidize countries that will play games using the reviews system. The broadcaster's counter-argument should be that they don't want to pay up for a system that is unproven, and could potentially work against their favourite team.

Imagine if ESPN-Star, Sky Sports or the Nine Network paid up for the DRS, and the decisions kept going against India, England or Australia. For sure the broadcaster, and the audiences, would hate it!

From all evidence so far though, there is a lot more fine-tuning needed with the DRS, and I humbly submit that the World Cup is not the stage for a trial.

On 9 March, the PCB banned 4 players (2 indefinite, 2 for 1 year) and fined 3 others, who were placed under probation for 6 months.

Less than 3 months later, 2 of those banned and all the 3 who were fined are in a probables list for the Asia Cup and a tour of England. The 16 year-old ball-muncher is made captain.

I apologize. I totally give up trying to make sense out of the ICC's and the PCB's actions.

Labels: 2011 world cup, afridi, ban, icc, pakistan, reviews, selection

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:29 am | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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ICC chickens out on reviews system for Ashes

The ICC Cricket Committee, in its wisdom, yesterday decided that the reviews system would have a phased roll-out from October.

Now, you could debate about whether the reviews system is needed and if just empowering the third umpire more would solve most problems. You could also debate on whether 2 reviews per innings are sufficient.

If the ICC believes that the system is here to stay, surely it makes sense to start early rather than later. Given the high profile nature of the Ashes series, and the obvious importance associated with ensuring that wrong on-field umpiring bloopers don't have a significant impact on the result of a game, it is baffling that the reviews system won't be in place for the Ashes.

Could it be related to England having a torrid time with the referrals system in the West Indies? Why wasn't the referral system used for the India-New Zealand series where Sky actually had Hawk Eye, HotSpot and a whole lot of other gizmos?

Labels: ashes, australia, england, icc, reviews

Thus spake Jagadish @ 12:39 pm | Sledge/Read 4 sledge(s)
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Only 2 reviews in West Indies-England series

The ICC announced today that there will only be 2 reviews per innings per team during the upcoming West Indies v England tests.

In the ICC's own words

It has become clear during the trial so far that three unsuccessful reviews per innings is too many as there is potential there for frivolous or unnecessary reviews to be made by one side or the other.

I find this bizarre. So is there only 1 frivolous appeal every inning? Are teams appealing for the third review just to get it out of the way? I suspect not!

If anything, this increases the possibility that the umpire makes a howler which the players can't appeal against. Doesn't that contradict why this system was introduced in the first place?

Imagine if the test match or series was up for grabs, with the last pair at the crease and an appeal for lbw was made, but the umpire ruled not out even though it was quite plumb. The bowling team finds to its agony that it has exhausted all its reviews. The batsmen go on to save/win the test. I'm guessing that it isn't an altogether unlikely scenario. So why should a team be penalized for using up its reviews even as an umpire getting it wrong totally costs them a test/series?

Unfortunately, I don't see any indication of time restrictions being placed on players & umpires to prevent abuse of the system or pretty much bring play to a standstill. In addition, there is no mention of other technology being made available to the TV umpire.

I believe that there should be an unlimited number of reviews, with run penalties for failed attempts. What about you? Vote and tell us!

PS: Is the West Indies-England series still called the "Wisden Trophy" or is it now called the Bloomsbury Trophy?

Labels: england, icc, reviews, umpires, west indies

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:29 pm | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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ICC Champions Trophy in Sep-Oct 2009, but where?

At the ICC Board meeting, there were quite a few decisions which would have a short-term and long-term impact on the game.

On the first day, the ICC decided that the BCCI would meet representatives from the Indian Cricket League. This was a result of the ICL folks meeting ICC President David Morgan a couple of weeks ago. The ICC is no doubt serious about a rapprochement with the ICL after the way several Bangladesh players signed up for the ICL last month.

It is in the interest of cricket players and administrators that the BCCI and the ICL arrive at a solution in a reasonable timeframe. While I hope that it can be sorted out by the end of the year, I don't think things will move that fast. The ICL's new season has just started. Zee has invested far too much in the venture to agree to an abrupt end. My guess is that over the next year, negotiations will result in the ICL disbanding and players being allowed to first represent their domestic teams and then a year or so after that, become eligible to be picked for national duty. Will it result in the likes of some obviously talented blokes like Rayudu, Jhunjhunwala, TP Singh, Sathish or Shalabh Srivastava getting picked, or will the youngsters who've played in BCCI authorized tournaments be given priority?

The umpire decision review system will be trialled in four more important series (NZ v WI, Ind v Pak, WI v Eng & RSA v Aus) over the next 6 months. That's a good idea, except that the system as it existed in Sri Lanka should be fine tuned a little bit and then trialled. There are some obvious flaws, and it doesn't make sense to persist with them when series are at stake. In addition, I wonder why the ICC didn't think of trialling the system in ODIs and T20 games. After all, in those shorter forms, the chance of a wrong umpiring decision having an irreversible impact on the result of the match is so much higher.

In order to target having cricket included in the 2020 Olympic Games (venue to be decided in 2013), there would be further research done. It is worth noting that cricket wasn't included in the 2006 Doha Asian Games, but will be included at Guangzhou in 2010. The list of events for the 2014 Incheon Asian Games is not yet published. Cricket wasn't part of the agenda at the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. Even more farcically, it isn't part of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi because in 2005, the BCCI decided that it wasn't in favour of Twenty20 being included at the games. Was that a missed moment or what?!

The ICC Future Tours Programme is all set to be disbanded with effect from May 2012, as if anyone cares about it anymore!

On the second day, the ICC decided that the 2008 ICC Champions Trophy, which had been moved to 2009 a couple of months ago, would be held between September and October 2009. However, it would only last 12 days and would be held in one city (as against 17 days and 2 cities). The final decision on if the event would be held in Pakistan would be made after India's tour of Pakistan in early 2009.

So let's see how this could go. In Feb 2009, after India's tour, the ICC could decide that it was safe enough to conduct the tournament in Pakistan. But there would still be 7-8 more months to go before the start of the event. Countries could develop cold feet in that time gap, for real and imaginary reasons. So what would the ICC do then? The best option would have been to move the 2008 2009 next edition out of Pakistan, perhaps to West Indies (the 2010 hosts) and allot the 2010 event to Pakistan. By 2010, the concept of the ICC Champions Trophy would be gone anyway!

Labels: 2009 champions trophy, champions trophy, icc, indian cricket league, olympics, reviews, twenty20

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:56 am | Sledge/Read 1 sledge(s)
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Tinkering with the review system

The newly introduced review system whereby players can seek reviews of on-field umpiring decisions has just completed one trial run. I'm fairly sure that this isn't the only trial run it will go through. I wouldn't be surprised if it was also used for the India-Australia series later this year, if not for some other series held earlier.

I still believe this is a good thing, as long as the ICC also does something to improve umpiring standards based on the data available on number of decisions changed for each umpire over the course of, say, a year.

In addition to reducing, not removing altogether, obviously wrong decisions handed out to bowlers and batsmen, I believe that the review system will result in batsmen using their bats more than pads, against spinners and slower bowlers, especially. In the Sri Lanka v India series that ended yesterday with a walloping for India, there were 16 lbw decisions given favouring Murali & Mendis, across 6 innings. The corresponding number for Sri Lanka (effectively only 4 innings since they declared at 6 down once and won with 8 wickets to spare yesterday) against Kumble & Harbhajan was 7.

I interpret the numbers to arrive at two decisions:

1. Murali & Mendis were far more accurate than Kumble & Harbhajan. This is also reinforced by the fact that India's spinners only dismissed one Sri Lankan batsman bowled, while Sri Lanka's spinners dismissed 7 Indian batsmen bowled.
   
2. Sri Lanka's batsmen used the pad more effectively (not necessarily lesser) than India's batsmen. In addition, India's batsmen did not figure out that the TV umpire was more inclined to ruling in favour of bowlers when batsmen didn't attempt to (or make a show of) using bat instead of pad. As a result, we had the spectacle in India's 2nd innings at the P Saravanamuttu stadium (3rd test) where Tendulkar was nearly given out lbw twice in a row when facing Muralitharan and the TV umpire ruled in his favour. Next over, he padded up to Mendis and was sent packing by the on-field umpire and by the TV umpire, when it was referred on Tendulkar's appeal for a review.

I'm going to stick with my earlier stand that there should be no limit on the number of reviews that a team can ask. But, there's an additional caveat. We've seen that captains (or batsmen) take a long time to ask for the review. So, the review must be asked for within a time limit of (say) 10 seconds after the ball has gone dead (i.e. from the moment the on-field umpire gave the original decision). The TV umpire must also be given a fixed time limit, of say 3 minutes, within which he should use the available evidence to arrive at a decision. If he is unable to do so, the on-field umpire's decision should stand.

One possible deterrent to players taking their own sweet time to ask for the review is to include the time taken to make that decision while calculating their over-rate while bowling and enforce the appropriate penalty. The other option is for the ICC to slowly increase the minimum over-rate limit, to say 17 an hour and then eventually end at 20 an hour.

The one aspect that the ICC needs to ensure is to make available more technology (and camera angles) to the TV umpire to ensure he gets the decision right, without wasting too much time. If that means using other gadgets (Snickometer, HotSpot, etc.), then they ought to make sure that happens. The inconsistency in decisions needs to be reduced removed. Some common sense is needed as well. If a batsman has been struck on the pad, and the point of impact is nearly 3m from the stumps, it is very tough to accurately determine that the ball will go on to hit the wicket, even if it pitched in line and the impact was in line with the stumps (Ganguly being given out lbw to Murali in the 2nd innings of the 3rd test).

The Indian team may possibly have the feeling that the review system hasn't really resulted in a decrease in the number of decisions going against them. It is in a trial phase. If the ICC does decide that the system is going to stay for the next few years at least, it makes sense to do more trials and then set the the benchmarks. It'd be stupid for the BCCI to now complain about the system, since the major trigger for this system being introduced was the horrible umpiring at Sydney 2008. For starters, if the Indian batsmen used bat more often than pad, they'd get out lbw a lot less often. To paraphrase King Cricket from his superb post last year when Pietersen was given out to a slip catch that didn't look too clean, the main problem was that the Indian batsmen played with pad. As a batsman, if you use pad rather than bat to spinners bowling accurately, there’s a fair chance you’re going to be out lbw.

Labels: ajantha mendis, icc, india, murali, reviews, sri lanka, umpires

Thus spake Jagadish @ 1:57 pm | Sledge/Read 2 sledge(s)
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Dissecting the player referral regulation

The ICC has published the regulations around players seeking reviews of umpiring decisions (player referrals, in short). This was originally to have been implemented during South Africa's tour of England, but the two sides were reluctant to be the guinea pigs. Perhaps, if Geraint Jones (born in Papua New Guinea) had been playing, there would have found a guinea pig!

It cannot be denied that the umpiring howlers at Sydney 2008 were what accelerated the decision-making process.

My belief is that this is a good thing. I do not buy the argument that good and bad decisions are part of the game. I do not understand why they should be part of the game. I know that it is not possible for on-field umpires to get all their decisions right all the time. But the administrators need to either improve the standard of on-field umpires or relieve some of the stress that they go through. If this isn't done, we'll keep seeing umpires apologizing for incorrect decisions.

Some of my thoughts around the proposed player referral system:

• The regulation says "The total time elapsed between the ball becoming dead and the review request being made should be no more than a few seconds.". Hence, this rules out the possibility of the fielding side discussing and then asking for the referral. The captain could walk up to some of his players and say "Hey, do we really want to get him out? He's anyway batting stupidly". Imagine it is a limited overs international and Jacques Kallis is batting with South Africa needing to make 8 an over across 35 overs and Kallis has 20(43). If I were the opposing captain, I'd really want Kallis to bat on for 10 overs more and I'd never ask for a referral!
  
• What sort of question does the on-field umpire ask? Let's say there was an lbw appeal and then the fielders also went up for a bat-pad catch. Will the fielding side appeal for the lbw or the bat-pad for the referral? Can the on-field umpire just ask the TV umpire "Tell me if he is out, and in what manner"? Or should he specify the mode of dismissal being appealed?
  
• Like Ian Chappell says, the problem with 3 referrals is that the biggest impacting wrong decision cannot be questioned. My suggestion is that instead of a limit of 3 referrals, there should be a run penalty per unsuccessful appeal (say 5 runs in ODIs and 20 runs in tests). But, I don't quite agree with his argument that this doesn't solve the problems around umpiring standards. It should be possible for the ICC committees to keep track of which umpires' decisions are successfully challenged the most frequently.
  
• The one good thing that may come out of the referral system is that meaningless appeals could come down. e.g. if a batsman is struck on the pads and it looks fairly adjacent, previously there'd have been very vociferous appealing hoping that the umpire would ignore the obvious inside edge off the bat. Now, since the batsman can question the decision, such appeals would be reduced. You could also see less instances of player dissent.

You can vote on whether the new mechanism of players seeking a review of umpiring decisions will reduce the number of umpiring mistakes.

Labels: icc, reviews, umpires

Thus spake Jagadish @ 11:29 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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ICC gets a few things right at least

The ICC's board met yesterday and there were quite a few significant announcements.

• It emphasized that bilateral series commitments would take precedence over IPL. Now will the WICB do something about Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan who say they will play in the IPL rather than against Australia? I suppose player contracts would have clauses that prevent players from plying their trade elsewhere when they are required to turn out for the national side. That aspect can and should be enforced against Gayle, Chanderpaul and Sarwan. Unlike the bans imposed on ICL players, I don't think this is a restraint of trade situation.
  
• The Zimbabwe Cricket Union gets away scot-free despite the continued scrutiny over the handling of ICC-released funds for over three years now.
  
• The format for the 2011 World Cup is finalized. My post a year ago or so proposed only the top 8 teams having an automatic qualification while the remaining teams play against the ICC trophy finalists in a round-robin manner with the top 2 making it to the main draw. The main draw would have 2 groups of 5 teams each, played in round-robin. The top 3 from each group qualify for a Super Six round with the top 4 being the semi-finalists. There'd be a total of 42 games played, 32 of them being in the main tournament. Subsequent comments argued (rightly) for the second stage being a quarter-final knockout. This'd reduce the number of main draw games to 27. The ICC's thinking is on the lines of all 10 full ODI playing countries being joined by the top 4 finishers from a qualified (presumably the ICC trophy). The 14 teams are split into 2 groups of 7 each. The top 4 from each group go on to play quarter-finals and the winners of the quarter finals play the semis. This means there'd be 28 47 (2 x 7C2 + 4 + 2 + 1) games. Perhaps, in the interest of 'inclusivity' in cricket, the ICC's format is acceptable. That's far too many games!
  
• Player referrals will be trialled from South Africa's tour of England this summer. I eagerly look forward to player revolts, especially by lower order batsmen and part-time bowlers, against captains and team management, who discourage them from appealing against on-field umpire decisions so that the better batsmen or bowlers can benefit, just in case the appeal isn't worth it.
  
• Darrell Hair, who was hung out to dry in around November 2006, has been reinstated and will be eligible to umpire games between full member teams until March 2009, when his contract expires. This was always the right thing to do. Darrell Hair is a good umpire. He isn't incompetent, when you compare him with Bucknor or Benson. He took a harsh decision on 20 Aug 2006, but it was the right decision.
  
• Imtiaz Patel has been 'selected' as the CEO, but the negotiations are not yet done. Last year, we saw a similar situation with the farce around Graham Ford's appointment, and subsequent withdrawal, as India's coach. Why did the ICC put its foot firmly in its mouth by prematurely announcing Imtiaz Patel's name when he hadn't even agreed?!

Labels: 2011, 2011 world cup, ball tampering, forfeit, hair, icc, indian premier league, ipl 2008, oval 2006, pakistan, reviews, scheduling, twenty20, west indies, world cup, zimbabwe

Thus spake Jagadish @ 4:19 pm | Sledge/Read 0 sledge(s)
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