DRS: what's the point?

Sidharth Monga writes about the DRS discussion, particularly the fact that the discussion should be going on. The focus on the stubborn BCCI as the sole hold-out in the face of the unquestioning rollout, while to some extent necessary, is way too prominent in the media coverage. Much of the thought we could see when the proposals weren't aligned to "sides" has been obscured. Many of the objections currently are serious whatever your view of technology, especially when it comes to cost and governance.

Having said that, Monga's pices goes off the rails when it comes to the paragraph on the original purpose of the review system. Yes it is true that the ICC's cricketing committee originally wanted to

spot edges (or their absence), balls pitched outside leg and balls hitting the batsman outside off when offering a shot for lbws.

and didn't want to use technology

to predict whether the ball would have clipped the leg bail.

I could raise the minor quibble that this intention was overruled very quickly, with the restriction on the use of projections dumped even before the start of the trial, but let's move on to the more serious misconceptions.

The first error is the obvious one. Monga claims the system was introduced for the odd big mistake (true enough) and for “umpires who have trouble grasping basic umpiring rules”. I don't know where this idea came from, but it doesn't make any sense at all. International umpires shouldn't be there without being able to grasp basic rules. Even facing evidence of trouble with slightly less basic rules (2007 WC final and so on), surely the answer to that problem lies in training, selection and people management. Most of all, how does a review system help? Whoever reviews the decision (third umpire or original umpire with third umpire input) is just as likely to be wrong in that regard. For wrong understanding of the rules, the very best we can get is a forced consultation with another umpire, which might help in a small minority of cases.

The second, less obvious error, comes after another reflection on pitting computer and human predictions. He seems to be urging the ICC to make decisions based on the premise that the system is meant to eliminate howlers, with the implication that it should not adjudicate on non-howlers, or in other words, marginal decisions. That this principle sets the boundaries of the DRS has been repeated for quite a while, at least as early as December 2009, but it doesn't quite do the original explanations justice.

When the "eliminate howlers" line was first used, it was addressing high expectations, pointing out that doubt wouldn't be eliminated, stating a minimal aim rather than trying to put a limit on what umpires should overturn. Put simply, we could only expect howlers to be corrected, and others might or might not be. It was aimed at observers, but also at players, who were given the choice to review and the risk of using them up where the mistake wasn't so obvious - the 'economy of error' was put in their hands, and they needed to be aware “it was not designed to remove all errors”. As Simon Barnes put it in March 09, “It is not designed as a charter for chancers”, even if the potential for pure tactical use was obvious from the start.

It's not hard to see how the stricter interpretation gained such currency. To start with, there's a quite reasonable way of looking at referrals where the only question is whether the umpire was justified or clearly mistaken, leaving each umpire their own approach to the marginal decisions, however you define such things. Once the trials got under way, we also saw the system applied by umpires inconsistently, even overturning decisions without compelling evidence. It's only natural that thoughts turned to limits on what's overturned, and the howler statement had a whole new context.

Now, the ICC members seems to be working on what are acceptable compromises (from their point of view), with room for further developments. There's a lot more to be said, a lot of it referred to in that article by Monga (along with a couple more red herrings), but for that conversation, it's better to speak of how we think the technology should be used, not bring up twisted explanations of what it was meant to do.

More DRS rubbish

The latest twist in the DRS use of Hawkeye when the batsman comes down the pitch is hard to get a grip on, mainly because the reporting seems amazingly confused. There might be something we can get form the latest Cricinfo article, but it's hard to know exactly what, since it's riddled with nonsense.

Why do I say that? Let's start with last paragraph boilerplate that CI has been adding to all their article on this topic.

“The 2.5m clause was included in the DRS rules following the expert view that the ball-tracker technology, in this case Hawk Eye, lost its accuracy when the distance between the point of impact and the stumps was greater than 2.5m.”

The only expert view that seems to be published online is that of the proprietors themselves, and they firstly consider the 2.0m mark more relevant than 2.5m and more importantly don't think the loss of accuracy is great enough to make that much difference, saying the 2.5m rule is their for historical consistency, not technological reasons. Yes, the CI line follows the recent comments from the ICC, but they are speaking just as much nonsense (if accuracy were the issue, it should be relevant to “out” decisions as well), and journalists really should be holding them to account. If there was an altogether different expert view given at some point, is there any reason they can't publich it and point us to it?
The article also says that there has been a change to “rule 3.3” in the DRS code, and that the previous rule said a leg before could be reversed “only if the replay showed that the ball was hitting the middle stump dead centre.” Even if we assume that the writer meant “a not out leg before decision” rather than simply “a leg before”, there are a lot of problems with how the article describes this:

1. The 2.5m rule (part of clause 3.3i)iii) can't by any stretch be related to a necessary condition for a not out decision to be reversed. The clause deals with when the umpire should be told definitively that the ball was hitting (or missing) the stumps. This is not the only factor.


2. There is clearly no mention of a middle stump criterion of any sort in the DRS code - the decision is to simply said to be made using “normal cricketing principles” informed by the ball tracking data. Something like “only if the ball is hitting middle stump” has been popping up a lot in discussion of the Ian Bell decision, but it's not at all clear whether it comes from a less formal umpire's directive (for this tournament or more generally), an off-the-cuff press conference example of what might qualify as normal cricketing principles, or a player or commentatorsa (possibly hyperbolic) interpretation of normal cricketing principles applied down the pitch LBWs.


3. We are told that umpire Erasmus asked whether the ball was hitting “any part of middle stump”. The box claiming to detail the new “law” tells us that it has to be the centre of the ball hitting any part of middle stump. If that's the new guideline, then how restricted was the meaning of “dead centre” in the reported old one? In any case, by my eyes the situation shown in the graphic accompanying the article doesn't meet that criterion anyway - if this is the Cusack referral, perhaps they really mean that any part of the ball is hitting any part of middle stump?


4. The box with the claimed new law has also clearly misread the code. The wording which is said to have been replaced comes before the 2.5m exception, and is about the more general condition for reporting (and effectively determining) that the ball was hitting the stumps. (It also isn't anything like “hitting the middle stump dead centre” - a much bigger area than middle stump is described!)

So what can we read between all the errors? There is talk of an umpire's directive, described as changing the protocol. I'd guess that the umpires manager has given direction to the umpires that a trajectory hitting middle stump (in some sense) can be considered out (in the absence of other reasons for a not out). It's not a change to clause 3.3 – it is easily seen as a clarification of a "normal cricketing principle", set in stone as a kneejerk reaction to the predictable inconsistency in interpreting that phrase. It's possibly a change to a similar earlier directive, although that doesn't seem likely to me. It's not all that strange - I've certainly heard similar sentiments (“That far down, I'd only give it out if it were hitting middle.”) from umpires relying on their own sight, and especially if technological accuracy really is the issue, the logic transfers well.

So it looks to me that as well as spouting clueless press releases, the ICC has had made a small concession in the name of consistency in response to the media drama round this issue, and this itself hsa been beaten up. Then again, there's so much we can't know, and so much rubbish in the reporting, that I may well be wrong.

Stepping down the pitch to DRS

There's (unsurprisingly) a lot of talk about how the DRS dealt with the LBW referral for Ian Bell, where umpire Billy Bowden chose to stick with his not out decision after the tracking system "predicted" the ball was going to hit the stumps. I'm going to take my own stride down the pitch on this topic - you judge whether I'm out, stumped or LBW!

The way the DRS works, the decision is ultimately up to the umpire, no matter where the point of impact is, but according to the regulations, if the point of impact has been less than 2.5m, the third umpire would simply have told him it was in line, hitting the stumps and so on, and I can't imagine that being ignored. However, in the over 2.5 m situation, the umpire not only given more details concerning distances and wherhe the ball is projected to go, but is told to use "normal crticketing principles" in deciding whether to overrule his original decision.

Cricinfo says that the reason for the 2.5m distinction is because that's where the predictions become less reliable. Of course the reliability of the trajectory prediction does depend on factors including distance from the stumps, and it's easy to believe that this was a factor in the minds of some of the people involved in accepting the guidelines. However, while the Hawkeye reports of MCC testing don't in my opinion rigorously address this issue, they also give reasonably different criteria for their "extreme LBW" classification, hinting (along with the dependence on the original decision being "not out") that this isn't what the 2.5m is really about. In fact, Paul Hawkins says the main reason for it is to ensure that the traditional dispensation for batsmen coming down the pitch "continues to be the case", even when the benefit is no longer founded in quite as much doubt.

The relevant document form Hawkeye is found online, and was first brought to my attention by Kartikeya Date. He has used the traditional approach to LBWs as a reason to oppose the use of technology for LBWs, and while he argues against the DRS even in this form on several grounds, I gather that he thinks it is better to include this clause than not.

In some ways, the 2.5m rule seems odd, but it is one of the more logical of the current systems oddities. The basic intention is that if either "traditional cricketing principles" applied to the trajectory or the projection itself say not out, it's not out. Of course, it's less transparent than simply using the calculated uncertainties of the systems, or even deciding on mathematical factors to simulate the traditional approach. Bell, Watson (v Zimbabwe) and Paine (v England in Perth) have all been given not out in a >2.5m situation where the computer said the ball was hitting the stumps. One decision was upheld by the umpire, two were overturned. We can't know whether this is because different factors were involved in the original decisions, the umpires have different ideas of what "traditional cricketing principles" are, or simply are differently inclined to overturn there own decisions. The first possible reason is in line with the aims of the clause, the second arguably so and the third clearly an unwelcome human factor. Describing the process more explicitly might help (if such a thing can be agreed on), but applying it to "out" decisions as well misses the point.

Personally, assuming the demonstration of the tracking and projection accuracy was more satisfying than indicated by the Hawkeye document, I would like to put more emphasis on the predictions of the tracking systems, but not on the grounds of transparency or lack of human involvement. Actually, even without using the tracking systems in real time, I'm happy to see umpires let them inform future decisions to some extent, as has already reportedly happened. I would rather make LBW decisions as literally as possible than maintain traditional levels of doubt in the process, but that's not because of a technological argument, but because I think I'd like the change it brings.

I'm certainly not pretending it wouldn't be a change. Which leaves us with the current clause in the DRS, intended to avoid a drastic change to interpretation of the LBW law. It might not be perfect in that regard, given that it depends on how the umpires use it, but criticism needs to either have the same intention, or tell us why it doesn't matter.

Under the arm of the law

For some reason the media feels the need to keep reminding me that toady is the 30th anniversary of the Chappell's underarm incident. It was a while later before I was in a position to have a reaction to it, and that initial reaction would tell you a lot about my character at the time!

Now, with a more rounded view of things, I still find it interesting that the sport saw almost Hair/Murali-type incidents in response to overarm, and before that even roundarm, bowling should end up removing the underarm or overarm clause from the rules (first routinely through playing conditions, then from the Laws themselves).

The changes have gone further than they need to. The rolling or excessively bouncing ball has been made a no-ball, and this deals with the real problem with the 1981 scenario. There's no reason to take away the underarm option as well, even if it is just a relic. It's not likely to be relevant to serious cricket, but can't hurt it anyway, and to my mind provides a nice link to history that should be allowed if it ever is wanted. Sure, it doesn't really matter whether the underarm balls delivered to kids in the backyard are sanctioned by the MCC, but you might have gathered that I think about hte rules a bit more than necessary.

Haddin('t) kept well

As World Cup squads are announced, there's chatter about their composition. MS Dhoni has no backup keeper. Australia have named both Brad Haddin and Tim Paine. Injured players can be replaced at any point (as a host, this should be particularly easy for India), so presumably Paine isn't there simply as a replacement.

Perhaps the tournament is considered long enough for Haddin to need resting even without injury. Perhaps the selectors want to be able to drop him if his keeping isn't up to scratch, although Hauritz is included as the only spinner (to India's three) despite the selectors recently considering other options in that department much more actively. (Not to mention the idea that a second spinner might be more useful than a second keeper.)

Perhaps the double choice is simply a symptom of the insistence that everyone have two strings to their bow, and the expectation is more along the lines that they could play together - neither would be completely out of place as a specialist batsman. Such a situation is hardly new, and I think will be more and more common. In this year's Big Bash, several teams have shown up with two or even three recognised keepers.

This has something to do with the trend towards keepers sealing their spot as batsman, especially explosive ones. There's plenty to think about in that story, but I'm particularly interested in the story of Haddin himself. I can't consider myself an expert, especially since I hardly saw anything of him during four and half years in England, but I've jumped to my own conclusions on him at various times based on more than his international performances, and I'd like to hear from anyone who can say the same.

I first saw Haddin in the the Canberra Comets' short-lived foray into List A cricket (he was a genuine local, while was also clearly a part of the NSW set-up - see what I'm thinking?) He left the Comets when Phil Emery retired, providing him a spot in the NSW lineup, then fairly quickly securing an apparent anointing as the successor to Gilchrist as Australian keeper.

Emery was a good keeper. Gilchrist had had to move west to get a keeper's spot. Haddin's keeping seemed to me be to better than Gilchrist's, and while he may never have been a Healy, he certainly had plenty of experience with Stuart MacGill and other spinners without looking a fool.I have heard it said the pressure to improve his batting to match the new standard set in part by Gilchrist led his keeping to suffer. I'm not sure about that, but his batting was good enough to get him not only the fill-in keeper role, but a match opening the batting with Gilchrist without taking gloves behind the stumps in 2004.

When he did permanently replace Gilchrist, we all saw some pretty poor keeping form. I had the impression this was out of character, and could come up with a few explanations. His performance in the recent Ashes series was much closer to my expectations. For some reason, a selector felt the need to come out in his support, proclaiming him the country's top keeper in all forms of the game. He was then promptly dropped from the T20 team. This isn't necessarily contradictory – this particular choice smells of picking Paine as vice-captain, rather than choosing the team first. His inclusion in the WC squad may also be as much to do with his development as the needs for the tournament, especially if the plan is to rest Haddin.

At my next opportunity to see Haddin, I was considering his keeping as the innings began. The Blues boasted two glovemen in their bash with the sandgropers. I would have had Smith behind the stumps, not as a reflection on Haddin's keeping, but on Smith's fielding away from the stumps. As it turned out, the innings featured the worst display of glovework I've ever seen from Haddin (or perhaps any professional cricketer) in the flesh, and his subsequent perfomances for Australia have not been much better.

Michael Slater suggests that the selectors should be held responsible for Haddin's latest deterioration. That didn't occur to me, but we've seen similar falling away corresponding to the selectors lack of consistency in the spinning department. The selectors make it very easy to blame them.

Now neither Haddin nor Paine are playing in the Big Bash clash tonight, and both are going to the World Cup. But what do you think? When has Hadding kept well, and when haddin't he?

What has Hilditch been drinking?

I thought I was beyond caring about Australian selection issues, but it just keeps getting stranger. The gum-suckers think it's all a conspiracy, with the feted Victorians finding it virtually impossible to get a game, but as soon as the big boy from St Kilda backs someone, he gets the nod. You might think the horses for courses idea might come into it somewhere, but that would imply Beer had bowled more than 108 first-class overs at the WACA.

Phil Hughes added some humour to the other inclusions by promptly getting a duck, while Steve Smith at least backed up his useful bowling by knocking off the crow-eater's meagre target.

I still don't want to bother thinking about whether Hughes/Smith/etc. are actually the right choices, but hte one thing I am sure of is that if the selectors do think the younger guys are better options than the likes of Hodge, White and so on for whatever reason, they need to pick some guys and stick with them (apart from dealing with injuries, of course). It'll be better for the team and those left behind in both the short term and the long term.

Pick me?

Apparently the Cricket Australia board has been asking questions of the selectors. Has this been leaked to the media to distract from the fact it was the administrators who forced the selectors to announce a squad a week earlier than they wanted to today.

Maybe we've all got the wrong end of the stick, though. Will Sutherland and Hilditch come out with a joint press conference tomorrow?

Sutherland: I know you all thought the new look Ryobi OD Cup was an overly ambitious attempt to change the face of day-long cricket and get a head start for 2015, but in bringing back the 12 player idea, we were actually working towards an agreement for the Ashes. We're still hoping to get a good reply from the ECB, but we're sure the public will love seeing more of the favourite players in the Baggy Green.

Hilditch: We believe we've chosen a great team for a 17-a-side match. Great batting lineup with Haddin coming in at 9. With Johnson, four full-time pacers, Smith and two more spinners with no batting to think of, as well as Watson, North, Clarke and Katich, no captain could possibly run out ideas. Isn't that right, Ricky? This team will really test the English depth.

Australian T20

I had plans to go to the first List A level T20 of the Australian summer, but they were discarded in light of the weather forecast and the fact that I haven't quite shaken the flu that kept me in bed for nearly 5 days, not to mention my intended companions' plans, reactions to the weather, and our general views on getting home from Rooty Hill after 10 on a Wednesday night.

As it turned out, the cracking thunderstorm was gone hours before, and it was traffic that held up the start of Blacktown Olympic Park's introduction to big time cricket. Once Sri Lanka had made it west¹, we hear that Jayawardene took the attack apart, rain interrupted the Blues innings, and they fell well short. While it was hardly the full strength team that provides half the players for Sunday's international, I think it's fair to say NSW would have expected a better result, last night, and as they started the second portion of their innings against Tasmania last week.

On the topic of full strength teams, it's worth noting that Test and ODI players are not available for the Big Bash at all, so for all the chatter, Michael Clarke really should be looking for an IPL opportunity if being the T20 captain and having the appropriate experience is at all important to him. Either CA leave him free to focus on other things, or he should be ready to go to whoever will have him.

But as we see in the news today, the Big Bash with its state teams and clashes with the international schedule is set to be short-lived. At first I had really trouble trying to see why this had popped up in the news today, asking myself what part of it we hadn't already heard.

An 8-team league is the plan, and while one report mentions second teams in Melbourne and Sydney, most stick with the old line that the last two locations are yet to be determined, allowing continued speculation about Geelong, Newcastle, Canberra, the Gold Coast, etc. The only development seems to be in the financing and ownership - my understanding of earlier reports was that CA would hold off on private ownership for a limited time, getting things going with (at least) 6 of the franchises in the hands of the state associations. The only change now seems to be that some associations would welcome investment and offers of some sort have been made. It might be sooner than expected, but I think that's where it was headed the whole time.

Split interest?

The banana-benders are taking on the islanders today in the first match of the Ryobi One-Day Cup, playing a new format of day-long cricket. The idea seems to have been to give a boost to the flagging interested in the version of the game now apparently caught neither here nor there between Tests and Twenty20. A lot has been made of not knowing what to expect, but in my opinion, there's not a huge amount truly new, even apart from the fact that there had already been some split innings experiments in England.

When it was first announced with words like "two innings", a lot of people quickly thought of a game which was basically back-to-back T20s, a concept supported by several big names as capitalising on factors associated with the emergence of the short format. Of course, the convenience of a 3 hour game is lost (would double T20 be better or worse over two nights?), and the international nature of the IPL and the glitz/glamour/gimmicks associated with T20 worldwide do not rely on the format at all, but the high scoring rates are also said to be an attraction. High scoring comes from the higher pace of the game in general when squashing a whole innings into twenty overs changes the balance of risks facing the batsman, and also from decisions to encourage big hitting with smaller boundaries and other incentives. I appreciate the excitement of the former despite my preference for the traditional less hurried game, but am not really keen on the latter at all. There's nothing inappropriate about a fast-paced T20 match on the full MCG oval, or an unpredictable Kotla pitch which favours the bowlers.

Cricket Australia's new format doesn't reduce the value of a wicket quite so much – a team's innings still needs to be built over an (interrupted) 45 overs. Some of the rules, such as an extra bouncer per over, give more tools back to the bowlers, although favouring pace over spin. The separate balls from each end will probably be welcomed by batsmen as well, and while what the periods which are effectively powerplays (fixed at 5 overs at the start of each segment) come to five overs less than in current ODI rules, the restriction to four (rather than five) players in the outfield for the rest of the match could lead more attacking bowling and batting.

In any case, the most obvious change isn't to the relationship between bat and ball, but to the order of the game, trying to spread the interest out by letting both teams get 20 overs in before either has the chance to finish their innings. This means more insight into where things stand for both players and spectators, more interest for those who turn up only for the second half and more even conditions for the two teams, but there's more to it than that - the team in front at the main break gets something like “first innings points”. While you need to build for a full innings, your first segment counts for something in itself. If you're going to give points other than for simply win/loss/draw, I'd have to say this makes more sense than the stupid bonus points currently favoured by the ICC. It's new, but not quite unfamiliar to anyone used to two-innings competitions.

So there is a small way in which the innings is more than just split/interrupted, and there should be a bit more batting to cope with it too. I wonder whether the most significant change might be to the makeup of the teams. 12-player teams are old news in this competition, but bowlers are also allowed to bowl 12 overs each, more than a quarter of the number required all up. This might mean higher quality bowling, but the restriction was never there to restrict the bowlers so much as to ensure reasonably traditional team make-up. Now, a team can choose to play 8 batsmen (assuming the keeper is included as a batsman), all of whom won't need to bowl except as a back-up in unusual circumstances. If part-timers come into plan A at all, the tail is even further reduced. This isn't the place for a slow-scorer at the top of the order. (It also makes D/L more likely to be a bit weird.)

It will be interesting to see how it goes. That, I think, is the point. I'm not sure how much F50 cricket in general is dying, or how much CA want to use this format to revive it, but it is always struggling to keep interest in the domestic cup, and they might be quite happy to rely on novelty for a year or even two, whatever the long term plans are.

It's cricket season

The Australian team have arrived in India, played a practise match in Chandigarh which seems to have served the purpose of a practise match, and, having travelled such a long way to Mohali, are preparing for the First Test.

Of course, playing a practise match means press conferences, and the players have duly provided some material for our consumption. This has drawn a few comments, and I'm sure there could is room for a PhD on what is generally said by different countries' cricketers and journalists (and even the response of their audiences) at home and away.

I'm not so interested in the "same old Aussie talk" angle, though. Perhaps with knowledge of the situation, I'm reading too much into it, but it the bowlers lining up to tell their plans seem, perhaps not more circumspect than what we're used to, but certainly less confident and more desperate in the less complimentary sense.

Whatever the sports psychologists say, there's good reason for that. It's a tough ask, although the current team seems ready to go out and be tested. I expect it to be interesting rather than thrilling, a more consistent contest than matches in Australia's last few series, which threatened to blow out or swing violently back at any second for more than one reason.

Buy the bye

Sidharth Monga thinks batsmen hit while trying to avoid the ball should not be entitled to leg-byes. Thoughts?

Not very English

After a bit of a delay (in several senses), the First Test has started. Pakistan becomes the third opponent to Test Australia at the MCC's famous home. (If only this had happened when I was in London!) Mind you, when it comes to cricket in general, Lord's is no stranger to Pakistan v Australia, this being the third such match since their first anti-climactic meeting in 1999.

The Pakistani batting has been weakened by well-publicised events. Australia have taken the opportunity to announce in advance Clarke's place in the batting order until next year. (That seems both unusual and unnecessary, to me.) Moving up a spot shouldn't hurt him or the team, but will hardly shake the world. Unsurprisingly, though, in my opinion, the big question is still how the Aussie bowlers will step up.

The return of Hilfenhaus may be useful in these conditions, but all three pacemen can be more erratic than some. The big change is the debut of Steve Smith as a spinner. I felt that throwing him in as the main spinner is rushing him, and am still concerned. Having said that, if there is a need, there is a need, and perhaps it is not such a big step from the role as all-rounder to replace a batsman that I would have been comfortable with. Even in this situation, I would put him in ahead of the other debutant. On that note, while I did get strangely confused just over a year, the Tasmanian wicketkeeper's inclusion for Haddin means that we now do indeed have three apple island born-and-bred members of the Test team!

Thwarted captain?

The headline of the article from PA Sport at the Cricket Australia site is still thwarting all of my attempts to make any sense of it.

More interesting than that is claim that he “was sent in at the top of the order”. If he's not the one making those decisions, does that mean he's in the team for his batting after all?

Eye on Hawkeye

Some sort of event going on in South Africa has set of the talk about the role of technology in sports officiating again. I think Kartikeya at A Cricketing View brings to this issue many of the approaches that are needed.

In particular, he highlights the fact that the aim of a drive to use technology is not about getting decisions right, but getting them “verifiably right”. It's not even about being correct. Questions are only raised because there appears to be, and often is, available evidence beyond what the umpires have traditionally relied on. Being absolutely correct is still impossible, it is only a question of whether there is a decent basis for the claim that a mistake was made.

As he says, the uncertainty is shifted to “hitherto unforeseen areas”, and this can be a problem if the technology is seen as decisive. This is related to the other important point Kartikeya makes - that technology is more than just the technical. It's use affected by the interests of those involved, and how it is understood and portrayed by them. There are a lot of sides to this - the example of the Lampard goal in the soccer raises questions, yes, but technology doesn't really come into it until we start thinking about the efficiencies and other outcomes of using broadcasters compared with those of using two more officials.

While I think these points form a strong basis for discussing technology in sports officiating, I don't agree with all the conclusions reached or implications made. The professional nature of modern umpiring, or at least the particular system run by the ICC, quite conceivably hinders umpires, rather than allowing best performances over an extended period of time. Neither is the need for umpires simply caused by players trying deceive. Asking players to give themselves out LBW might work (sometimes) in the backyard or park, but it is clearly not just a matter of honesty. This is an extreme case where the Law itself was developed assuming indepedent involvement, but it is not the only example.

This example is very relevant,as Kartikeya does focus on LBW, in particular Hawk-eye. He begins by agreeing with what I think is the vital point - we have to move past the broad rhetoric of technology vs human, and look at each method of officiating as a separate case. The fact that technology shifts uncertainty rather than eliminating it is an argument against technophilia, not against individual solutions. Being verifiably right or close to it can be a valid aim, and uncertainty is sometimes (often, for example, in run outs) not “merely” shifted, but reduced. Even a change that is not quantifiable may be arguably more acceptable for some reason. This needs to be hammered out, not pre-judged one way or the other.

So what about LBWs and Hawk-eye? It is quite different to most other examples, in that the answer does not rely simply on observing, but on some level of speculation. The basis of that speculation was changing even before the advent of Hawk-eye, so I don't think it can be blamed for changing the Law. Using a technological system to observe and speculate is not in itself any worse than putting it simply in the hands of an umpire, especially under recent versions. However, traditionally there are a large number of umpires who are unreasonably biased against giving LBWs to one extent or another, and it should also be acknowledged both that Hawk-eye is potentially much harsher on batsmen than an umpire could reasonably be. I don't think “correcting” either of these aspects of human umpiring is a bad change, but it is a change.

The reason for this is that uncertainty, and the benefit thereof, is already acknowledged in our understanding of the rule. Shifting the uncertainty isn't simply shifting the errors. Thankfully, it should be possible to talk sensibly about what the uncertainty is for Hawk-eye, and tests have been done by the MCC. Questions remain, as the reports are light-on. Kartikeya rightly objects to two-part classification of “normal” and “extreme” LBWs, and to the 'average error', suggesting the median rather than the mean. We don't know how broad this test was. I understand that pitch variation and calibration based on play are fairly unimportant, but Soulberry's reference to all the bowling variations is important here. I'd prefer an indication of the distribution of errors for a whole range of deliveries, varying over the distance and other factors and summarised with a confidence interval, rather than any sort of average or claimed absolute maximum.

That is the technical side. There is a protocol for its use in the context of the UDRS. The uncertainty is not ignored at all - while the beneficiary of the doubt in this system is controversial, a half-ball's width (let alone 45mm) is generous enough to make worrying about errors as large as half the stump's width quite ridiculous. On top of that, the Hawk-eye document implies that the protocol also prevents LBW decisions when the batsman comes too far down the pitch, following traditional umpiring rather than the letter of the law. It might fall to further criticism, but I wouldn't say Hawk-eye has been “uncritically adopted”. It certainly hasn't been adopted as though it gives certainty about the trajectory.

Yes, it is convenient for the marketing of Hawk-eye to ignore the uncertainty. It probably does give the wrong impression sometimes, but I don't agree that it would be less persuasive if a range of likely locations were shown. Most of the commentators who leap to absolute statements are of the sort that did that anyway when given much less. Most of us are ok with the idea of an approximation at one level or another. I am probably not the best sample, but I would find an indication of the confidence interval more persuasive on first look. I don't have any problem with a commentator saying “Hawk-eye gives greater than 95% probability of hitting the stumps, so that's a good decision.” In general, I'd love to see an understanding of the uncertainty involved encouraged with that sort of display, although in practise it's not obvious how to show it simply without giving all sorts of other impressions. (Mind you, it's a bit funny to worry about showing about the Hawk-eye uncertainty in an application that doesn't even claim to perfectly display the Hawk-eye results!)

All in all, I think Hawk-eye can be used sensibly. Any suggestion that Hawk-eye gives certainty where an umpire speculates should be corrected, but that correction shouldn't simply rubbish the claim, but replace it with an good idea of how accurately a the Hawk-eye system performs that same speculation. Further testing showing greater errors, or concerns about the reliability or even integrity of those operating the system, may give reason to prefer a human umpire, but not simply the fact that the technology is limited and has been over-rated.

First stop Dublin

So Australia's northern tour begins. In the past, the short trip to Ireland was a bit of fun, known for things such as six-hitting exploits and so on. This time it is a full-status ODI, the first between the two teams outside a World Cup. (I think it even counts for the ICC tables.)

Ireland are in some ways like the Socceroos - not necessarily living up to their past unexpected exploits. Of course, it doesn't help to be losing players to a more prestigious neighbour. Some more creative thinking is needed here - perhaps if more players were retained, Ireland wouldn't still be using Australian and other second -string players. In any case, it is a long way from the days when SR Waugh lined up for the Irish.

This is a strange tour - an unusually seroius warm-up match, yet another long ODI series, some modern stuff, and as a climax, an 'away' Test series against a team with all sorts of internal problems. The islands off north-western Europe are a long way from the North West Frontier - let's see what happens!

The real deal?

Cricinfo's headline seems a bit harsh on WI and Ireland, ahead of tonight/tomorrow morning's match.

Thinking a bit further, it would seem to be just as slack to NZ and SL. Just what does count as the real deal in this tournament?

I'm still not convinced Australia (the team) sees the tournament as a whole as the real deal, but they could pull off a fair bit if the bowlers fire.

The whole thing doesn't seem too predictable - partly because of the format, but also because international T20 is still pretty rare.

Supporting acts

The ECB decided to shorten their limited-but-not-as-limited-as-some-these-days overs tournament, split it into three groups, and then realised that would work better with an extra team. They decided to fill the team with anyone who hadn't made it somewhere else.

I'm not sure where such a team would find supporters, but I learn through a tweet (that at first went over my head) that they, like the Lions team, have been named after one of the supporters in the royal arms of the United Kingdom.

Making up the numbers, I doubt they're expected to win much. Indeed,

The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.

What's surprising is that an English team has been given that name. Surely someone in the ECB knows that the unicorn is the Scottish counterpart to England's lion?

Of course, according to Lewis Carroll's White King, even the winner does not get the crown, but the nursery rhyme continues

Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
and drummed them out of town.

and Alice does give the lion twice as much plum-cake!

Heavy on bats

It's the time of year when we find out which players will be paid by Cricket Australia from 1 July onwards. There's nothing too surprising in the list, although there's always something to talk about. Jrod wonders why Lee gets more allowances for injuries than Bracken. Tony wonders about the magic number of contracts, pointing out the absence of T20 write-ins.

I'm not sure where the Jaques story fits in the injury picture, and I can see why a T20 position might not be considered that important, but 25 contracts does seem pretty arbitrary. It also seems to me at first glance that the squad, if we can call it that, is fairly balanced in terms of bat and ball. This is slightly surprising, given the effect of both injury rates and recent selection tendencies on the number of batsman and bowlers likely to be actually required for national duty.

Expansion teams

The announcement of two new IPL franchises sounds familiar, and while the process is much less drawn out in this case, can we draw any parallels with the AFL's expansion?

While Fremantle and Port Adelaide have been around long enough now, the IPL has accepted a second team in a cricketing heartland state (Pune). However, they have also taken on a "Western Sydney" expansion area 'not known for cricket' (Kochi). The apparently deserving alternative of "Tasmania" has been left out (Ahmedabad), perhaps continuing to supply fans for teams from neighbouring state(s), especially "Hawthorn", who play some games there (Rajasthan).

Of course, these analogies are far from perfect: The IPL (thankfully) has no Victorian roots. It might be a more realistic depiction of the relative populations, and (probably only slightly) fairer to Kochi's cricketing heritage to align them with the Gold Coast. While the Chargers this year might look like the homeless Kangaroos of old, some might think that designation would also fit Warne's Royals better than that of the Hawks. But does that make Ahmedabad the Gold Coast? I'm getting confused...

My point (other than being entertained by my own confusion) is that it's interesting how quite different mechanisms of decision making (both directed at making money, it should be said) have led to similarly disputed choices when it comes to expansion. Having said that, my colleague from Ahmedabad isn't concerned with the news at all - the whole thing seems safer ground than looking at the leagues' respective approaches to providing players for the new teams!

Sledging bingles

A NZ ex-cricketer, cricket CEO and cricketer have come out saying that sledging Michael Clarke over his bingle/bungle (Kiwis can't tell the difference, after all) in his relationship. That hardly brought a response, but somewhere in there teammate Michael Hussey opined that it would indeed be "going a bit too far", and that brought on comments galore.

There's a lesson in that.

While still looking for lessons on sledging, isn't it interesting how these stories tend to prompt writers to include the stock list of all-time famous sledges? Isn't it even more interesting that nearly all of them aren't in the list because of the original sledge, but for the response?