Should the DRS be mandatory?

[hopeforthebest]

Good to hear from you as always Albondiga.

My stance remains unaltered - the only review to be by a third umpire who is allowed to see, in real time, the same as the onfield umpire. No slow motion, no hawkeye, hotspot etc.

Cricket is not played in slow-motion - why should it be judged that way?

Sport is many things but it is not about a judge, jury and justice - endeavour, skill, strength, weakness, human judgement (in all its frail forms).

Debates in pubs, clubs, in the home, on the bus - was it over the line, was it a penalty, did he hit it, was it lbw etc - one of the great things about sport which millions have enjoyed most of my lifetime.

DRS, and the TV companies are now, as per DeltaAlpha - reducing cricket to a physics lesson played to an audience by amateurs.

Why are we now worried about players not accepting the umpires decision? It's a fundamental of cricket culture that they should - and it should be written into a code of conduct as part of the laws of the game.

Of course, I am standing in the path of progress and will be run over by a juggernaut - but cricket will still lose it's soul - if it hasn't already.

From one 'juggernaut' to another -- I could go for a third umpire helping the two on -field umpires if he reviews in real time without the use of technology .

Bur how would that work? are you suggesting that on field umpires contact the third umpire when he's unsure or that the third umpire should contact the on field umpire and tell him he's made a mistake. Those who say the current system takes too long already will have even longer time wasted.

[rich1uk]

yeah I made a comment earlier that we have to be very careful allowing unlimited use of the 3rd umpire for more areas of decision making , look at stumpings and runouts , we see 99% of them referred by the onfield umpires for the decision, only the extremely blatant ones are ever decided by the onfield umpire , if this facility came in for more decision types then I worry the onfield umpires would start asking the 3rd umpire for help all the time

[Gingerfinch]

yeah I made a comment earlier that we have to be very careful allowing unlimited use of the 3rd umpire for more areas of decision making , look at stumpings and runouts , we see 99% of them referred by the onfield umpires for the decision, only the extremely blatant ones are ever decided by the onfield umpire , if this facility came in for more decision types then I worry the onfield umpires would start asking the 3rd umpire for help all the time

Yes, they'd say "better to be safe than sorry", and who would blame them.

[Making_Splinters]

If the DRS was used for its original purpose of overturning blatently wrong decisions then there would be none of these issues.

The "tactical" use of DRS is what is causing the problem. If captains and players can't be trusted to use it appriopriately then it needs to be removed from the game.

[DeltaAlpha]

I'm not sure that I understand the notion of "tactical" use of DRS; the problem is much deeper than how players use it.

I think the real problem is that the ICC is in the pockets of broadcasters. The ICC should decide what technology, if any, is to be used, and in what ways - in the interests of the game, not just latch on to what broadcasters want to show as entertainment.

[Making_Splinters]

Tatical use essentially refers to any time it is used by a player aside from when they are confident that a decision given is wrong.

DRS was designed to overturn decisions which were blatently wrong, for example Broad's edge in the first test. The problems have arisen due to the desire to push the boundary of what is wrong and what is not wrong down to the smallest possible margin. Rather than it simply being a case of saying that there is or is not a clear edge, we see third umpires straining to spot almost invisible marks on the edges of bats. How does that fit in with the original mantra of overturning clearly wrong decisions?

It is no wonder that wheels are coming off when the system is being pushed beyond what it was either meant to do, or infact, is capable of accurately doing.

I was a strong advocate for the DRS, however the more I see its use being bastardised and subverted by players, boards and TV companies the more I find myself actually agreeing with the BCCI.

[DeltaAlpha]

I was a strong advocate for the DRS, however the more I see its use being bastardised and subverted by players, boards and TV companies the more I find myself actually agreeing with the BCCI.

I can understand that!

[D/L]

...I agree with Vaughan, actually, D/L; I think Hotpot is a very dubious technology. More effort should go into developing Snicko: in my opinion, a much more reliable technology.

Very surprised to hear that, DA.

"Hotspot" undoubtedly contributes to raising the proportion of correct decisions. I can understand Vaughan, or anybody in the media, trying to generate controversy about it but not intelligent people agreeing with him.

More development should, and undoubtedly will, go into all technologies that demonstrably improve the decision making in the game.

[D/L]

...I was a strong advocate for the DRS, however the more I see its use being bastardised and subverted by players, boards and TV companies the more I find myself actually agreeing with the BCCI.

Me too, and I still am, M_S. Players were always going to use it "tactically". Allowing only two unsuccessful reviews (one would be better) helps prevent this becoming too much of a problem though.

The BCCI may have reasons other than doubts over the technology for their opposition to it.

[DeltaAlpha]

...I agree with Vaughan, actually, D/L; I think Hotpot is a very dubious technology. More effort should go into developing Snicko: in my opinion, a much more reliable technology.

Very surprised to hear that, DA.

"Hotspot" undoubtedly contributes to raising the proportion of correct decisions. I can understand Vaughan, or anybody in the media, trying to generate controversy about it but not intelligent people agreeing with him.

More development should, and undoubtedly will, go into all technologies that demonstrable improve the decision making in the game.

The thing is, D/L, that any video system has to have what's called a "black level", and this has to be higher than zero. This means that any intensity of light, infra-red or whatever below that level will not show up in the video; if this were not the case, the video would literally be full of spots. The implication, as I'm sure you will see, is that a very thin edge can never be shown, no matter how much development is applied to Hotspot. The same restriction does not apply to Snicko.

[Making_Splinters]

...I was a strong advocate for the DRS, however the more I see its use being bastardised and subverted by players, boards and TV companies the more I find myself actually agreeing with the BCCI.

Me too, and I still am, M_S. Players were always going to use it "tactically". Allowing only two unsuccessful reviews (one would be better) helps prevent this becoming too much of a problem though.

The BCCI may have reasons other than doubts over the technology for their opposition to it.

I actually think that streamlining the technology would have a far more postitive impact than any limitation of reviews, D/L.

The original purpose was to overturn incorrect decisions, and what needs to be considered again is what actually is an incorrect decision.

If you're having to go frame by frame, looking for things far beyond that which a human umpire could detect to say in or out, then how is it correcting the original decision.

Hotspot has become a bit of a poster child for this; it should be a simple mark if they hit it, no mark and they didn't. We're seeing decisions upheld when there is no mark, how does that even make sense.

DRS needs to go back to being an insensitive tool which can only overturn blatently incorrect decisions.

[hopeforthebest]

...I agree with Vaughan, actually, D/L; I think Hotpot is a very dubious technology. More effort should go into developing Snicko: in my opinion, a much more reliable technology.

Very surprised to hear that, DA.

"Hotspot" undoubtedly contributes to raising the proportion of correct decisions. I can understand Vaughan, or anybody in the media, trying to generate controversy about it but not intelligent people agreeing with him.

More development should, and undoubtedly will, go into all technologies that demonstrable improve the decision making in the game.

The thing is, D/L, that any video system has to have what's called a "black level", and this has to be higher than zero. This means that any intensity of light, infra-red or whatever below that level will not show up in the video; if this were not the case, the video would literally be full of spots. The implication, as I'm sure you will see, is that a very thin edge can never be shown, no matter how much development is applied to Hotspot. The same restriction does not apply to Snicko.

As I said ear;ier I had great faith in snicko until this series where on more than one occasion it showed high amplitude when nothing could have produce that display level. The fact that it requires a software package to correlate the sound with the vision suggests to me that it can be as faulty now and then as the glitches in my PC.

[D/L]

...I agree with Vaughan, actually, D/L; I think Hotpot is a very dubious technology. More effort should go into developing Snicko: in my opinion, a much more reliable technology.

Very surprised to hear that, DA.

"Hotspot" undoubtedly contributes to raising the proportion of correct decisions. I can understand Vaughan, or anybody in the media, trying to generate controversy about it but not intelligent people agreeing with him.

More development should, and undoubtedly will, go into all technologies that demonstrable improve the decision making in the game.

The thing is, D/L, that any video system has to have what's called a "black level", and this has to be higher than zero. This means that any intensity of light, infra-red or whatever below that level will not show up in the video; if this were not the case, the video would literally be full of spots. The implication, as I'm sure you will see, is that a very thin edge can never be shown, no matter how much development is applied to Hotspot. The same restriction does not apply to Snicko.

I don't doubt a word of what you say about the technology, DA. I understood previously, but you explain very clearly why "Hot Spot" cannot always show contact. It can, however, show when there has been some contact, undetectable to the human eye or ear, and that is why I (and apparently the ICC now) reckon it should be retained as part of the UDRS process.

Vaughan is just “flying a kite”.

[rich1uk]

...I was a strong advocate for the DRS, however the more I see its use being bastardised and subverted by players, boards and TV companies the more I find myself actually agreeing with the BCCI.

Me too, and I still am, M_S. Players were always going to use it "tactically". Allowing only two unsuccessful reviews (one would be better) helps prevent this becoming too much of a problem though.

The BCCI may have reasons other than doubts over the technology for their opposition to it.

DRS needs to go back to being an insensitive tool which can only overturn blatently incorrect decisions.

that coule be the real crux of the issue , the technology has progressed to a point where we can look at the action in great detail and the assumption would be the more you dissect the footage and more toys you use the more accurate it must be but sometimes it is more sensible to say that just because the technology exists it doesn't mean we have to use it

I wonder how many of the onfield decisions that DRS corrects could have been made with just having the 3rd umpire watch a couple of slow motion replays

the references to the BCCI's objections are not valid imo , their position and concerns were never really for the same reasons as the current debate, their primary concern was always about hawkeye and the predictive element of it, personally I am fairly comfortable with hawkeye and that the tolerances built-in to the umpires call aspect mean that it will only really correct a howler

[D/L]

...We're seeing decisions upheld when there is no mark, how does that even make sense...

Those decisions are usually made in the light of other evidence presented to the 3rd umpire at the time, M_S.

If we accept that "Hot Spot" cannot show very thin contacts but the video replay suggests a tiny deflection and/or the audio (as broadcast live and then replayed, not "Snicko") suggests some contact then we are asking the 3rd umpire to take into account "Hot Spot" only in making their decision. I can understand the reluctance to do this.