The institutionalisation of dissent

As a brief interlude to my more measured musings on umpires, discussion over at Homer's blog has made me wonder about the trial referral system. There was a lot of talk about weeding out dodgy decisions about dismassals, but perhaps the bigger effect was the "decriminilisation" of dissent in the form of asking for a tv replay. I don't want to get into the question of whether decriminalisation takes away some of the danger of drugs and things like that, but I wonder whether it softens the power of dissent.

What was once beyond the pale and subject to the usual (inconsistent) application of the Code of Conduct is now provided for in the playing conditions. Now it is allowed, it is crazy to think of anyone being fined for suggesting the third umpire could have been consulted, but at the same time, players are expected to understand that this can only be done at certain times. Once there are signals from the dressing room, or once there have already been two unsuccessful requests, players are left regretting their own actions in chossing when to refer, rather than simply angrily blaming the umpire, even though the umpire is just as much to blame as they always were. If I were even more cynical than I am, I might think that was the intent of the system...