WI tour of England, July 8-28

[Arthur Crabtree]

No pace in the pitch now apparently.

Might be reverse swing as the ground dries out, but not sure if it's possible without spit.

[alfie]

And indeed there have been several decisions involved so I can understand why the argument is raised. I just think we should wait and watch the rest of the game before getting carried away. I'd be concerned if it continued throughout but we are only 14 wickets out of 40 so far...

The decisions that have gone in the game are only really the underlining of the argument for me, the real problem is the frankly bizarre decision to have 5 umpires on the ECB payroll and 3 ex-internationals of England forming the whole basis of the officiating team. I struggle to think of any sport where such an occurrence would be allowed to happen, and in doing so you place the integrity of the sport into question if you have issues. The last couple of days play is an example of the problem; if there was a Pakistani and Indian umpire out in the middle making the exact decisions, nothing would have been said most likely, but the fact is we have witnessed two English lads giving everything to their side, so the can of worms gets blown open. I can understand why you are of the opinion not to overreact on the officiating, but I think the horse has kind of bolted already.

If England start coping bad decisions now, not sure it changes that. If an umpire goes back to his hotel and flicks through the cricket pages and sees criticism, he is equally as likely to let that perception of his bias transfer the other way. So if we end up in test 2 with two English umpires desperate to prove they arent bias after complaints or criticism, we could then see England getting the wrong end of an umpire out to prove his integrity.

Bottom line.... in 2020 no official ICC match should have a home umpire in charge. I feel quite strongly about that

Ah well there I do agree with you. In fact I'm not sure why it was impossible to arrange for a couple of neutrals ? Difficult , perhaps , in the current virus-raddled world : but I'd have thought they could have managed to get some - even if they hadn't been the usual highest ranked or experienced umpires...
With this three referral system I think everyone would have accepted a slightly lower standard if necessary . And of course , no perception of bias.
Still I guess we are stuck with the current deal for now.

As England are stuck without Broad for this match

West Indies poised to take a grip now unless the new ball does wonders...

[yuppie]

All square.

So will WI give way for a 40 run lead.

Or will they grind a dispirited attack for 150 more?

The 150 grind is looking more likely at present......

[sussexpob]

No pace in the pitch now apparently.

Might be reverse swing as the ground dries out, but not sure if it's possible without spit.

Males all the difference putting the ball in good areas. Wood for instance has bowled at some surprising pace, one ball clocked 96mph; and while Id say hes bowled too short, hes actually at times caught a few top edges, and certainly when Brathwaite and Hope were in, both made poor attempts to take on the short ball. So there is nothing in theory wrong with getting some nasty stuff in, but the direction is been poor and its been too telegraphed. Get the batter playing forward and use the short ball sparingly, not banging it in hopelessly 4 times an over.... its all been a bit "enforcer" era Broad from Wood so far.

Archer looks underpaced and undercooked too. Hes been pretty rudderless so far

[Alviro Patterson]

Except a DRS decision is not made instantly, as it takes time for Hawkeye to calculate the projection of the ball. No standing umpires just slows the game down further when test cricket is already criticised for not being able to fit 90 overs in a days play.

Takes less than a second for the 3D model to work out a decision. The exact same 6 camera tracking system is used in football and the referee gets a vibration in real time if the tracking system deems the ball has gone in, if you need proof. If it takes longer for the third umpire in cricket, its entirely down to the broadcaster taking time and the theatre of seeing the decision being deemed part of the drama of the sport. Just like a referee in football gets a vibration in real time, soo to could the onfield umpire to tell him the ball was hitting if the desire to have full technology in the game was prevalent. And as previous discussions a while back about snicko with Delta alpha, a visual snicko is a waste of time and only there for the entertainment value, you could put a sound gate to trigger at certain frequencies and a light go off behind th
e stumps instantly if the microphone detects an edge. In fact that would be massively more accurate than the current system, where people just see slight movement of a sound wave, even though the type of movement does not at all correspond to the sound waves produced when bat hits ball.... so many snicko decisions are made when its obvious to anyone whos ever done anything with sound that what is registered is a background interference.

So yes, its entirely viable and would be far more accurate. The only argument against it is maintaining traditional roles for umpires.

The six camera tracking system in football can't determine an offside decision in real time. Otherwise legitimately scored goals would not be overturned by the time players are about to kick off.

Can snicko clearly determine bat before pad in real time, a bat or pad sound, or will it just flag up any sound?

Then there is the cost of implementing technology, not all cricket boards are cash rich and would want to spend their money on something else. Sport is played by humans, not by computers. Technology is a good tool to use to aid decisison making and development, but as in many sports rule books "In the event of any dispute, the officials decision is final" and it should stay that way.

[sussexpob]

The six camera tracking system in football can't determine an offside decision in real time. Otherwise legitimately scored goals would not be overturned by the time players are about to kick off.

Completely different system which I believe takes manual triangulation, its not as simple as a very easy calculation that spits out a decision in milliseconds based on observable real time metrics.

Can snicko clearly determine bat before pad in real time, a bat or pad sound, or will it just flag up any sound?

Snicko itself cant do anything, its just the amplified sound of the audio recording put through something that visualises it. However its pretty easy to distinguish the unique sounds of all likely occurrences (bat, pad, bad on ground, bat on pad) and find in each a unique frequency that makes the sound unique. You can then with a bit of free kit available in 5 minutes online, place a filter on that sound wave which means only that frequency will play. You put the live recording through the filter, and if you hear nothing, there is nothing. So you isolate it only to the unique sound of ball hitting bat, and play it... if its silent, then its hit something else. You could then use midi triggers so that something like a video, light or whatever is triggered by that sound. Its really easy, I could design such a system in an afternoon.

The same works with bat and bad. If the thud of the pad registers before, the filter on its level will trigger first and block everything else out. So you could connect pad to a green light, bat sound to a red light, bat on ground to blue or whatever, and in real time every single ball a different colour light triggers.

[Arthur Crabtree]

England should ask for the old ball back.

WI still have their best bat to come in.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Review for Chase on 47.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Out, on review. Wicket for Anderson.

A touch too late.

Three hours plus knock from Roston.

[Arthur Crabtree]

Fifty for Dowrich. Taken WI from 18 deficit to seventy lead.

[alfie]

Vital innings from Dowritch . If he'd gone cheaply they just might have folded. He came out aggressively , scared Stokes into removing Bess (a little prematurely I think) and then settled into a very sound game against the seamers with an old ball. A well deserved half century and giving his team a strong position late in the day

[mikesiva]

Dowrich gets his half century!

[sussexpob]

Wood gets him...no sorry, it's benny

[Arthur Crabtree]

Joseph averages 5.6 but comes in first of the specialist bowlers.

[sussexpob]

Joseph averages 5.6 but comes in first of the specialist bowlers.

Yeah it's not encouraging for the windies.