In Support of the Decision Review System and the HAWK EYE

For once, I would like to congratulate the ICC.

Not only is the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) a great tool that they have introduced to minimize errors in decision making on the cricket field, the fact that the ICC has stood by the decision in the face of stiff resistance from various cricket boards, players, ex-cricketers and the cricket fraternity in general is laudatory. The Decision Review System is back in the news as it is being used in two important ongoing test series – Australia vs West Indies and England vs South Africa. The usual suspects along with many new ones are as again out with their guns trying to shoot down the UDRS and poke fun at the ICC in general. Now, I am all for a nice debate but this time I have little patience for these gentlemen as they just don’t seem to be interested in doing their homework. A lot of them are from the anti-technology brigade, the kind who in their heart of hearts don’t like even the run-out decisions being referred to the 3rd umpire. Some of them are the romantics – now I have all the love for the old fashioned and the romantics but if what happened in Sydney last January is romance then I would rather never fall in love.  But still the romantics are the only one in this motley group of protesters who do have a point. The biggest group which overlaps with the anti-technology brigade is that of the idiots who simply don’t understand the Decision Review System. It is too complicated an affair for their grey cells – in general these are the people who resist change of any kind. They don’t understand the Review System nor do they want to make an effort to understand it. They are simply too busy shouting and trying to bring it down.

Let me tell you something really ironical and funny. I was talking to a couple of anti-UDRS friends while we were watching a match live on TV – note this last few underlined words carefully. On more than one occasion all of us felt enlightened after watching a replay and realized the mistake that the umpire had made. Not once did either one of them doubt ourselves – that what we may be seeing on TV may not be the reality; we were all convinced that the umpire had made a mistake after watching the replays. Yet these two gentlemen simply didn’t want to give the UDRS a chance. Isn’t that funny?

Why? Why did the two gentlemen behave like this? Why do the same commentators and cricket experts on TV who keep running down the umpires after convincing themselves with the TV replays that the umpire was wrong not want to use the same TV to get the decision right, just the way they had always wanted?

There are two reasons that I can think of:

• Human beings by nature resist change. They will crib endlessly about things yet never try to change things. Look anywhere – every bar in town is packed with young and women every women running down their jobs, their bosses, their colleagues et al. But only a very tiny percentage ever try to give up their jobs and find better substitutes. The cricket expert on your TV sets is no different from these young men and women at the bar – they are comfortable with their jobs which includes running down the umpires constantly. But they don’t want to change things…
• The ICC did not make sufficient effort to educate people on the HAWK EYE: Most people think that the Hawk Eye is too naive, that how the ball will behave after pitching on the wicket is too complex an affair for a machine to handle.

Can the Hawk Eye make accurate predictions in Cricket?

We cannot do much about the fellows who resist change except for wait to see them get around and see the point. If you have a point, these fellas usually see it, though it may take them a considerable while. It took some time before these kind of guys agreed with Copernicus a few centuries back.  It took my grandma a year before she accepted the fact that some American chaps had indeed put their feet on the moon. See, these guys eventually agree so let’s not worry too much about them and instead focus on explaining the Hawk Eye  a bit more. 

Now the second set of guys who think that what the cricket ball will do after pitching on the wicket is too complex an affair for a machine to handle are actually right. Harbhajan Singh’s doosra may behave differently from his other deliveries after pitching on the same wicket in the same match on the same day. What’s more, even two doosras from the turbanator may not behave the same way after pitching. Now imagine the complexities involved with a hundred different bowlers on a hundred different surfaces in a hundred different weather conditions. Surely that’s too complicated a decision for the poor machine. But… 

In more than 99% cases, the Hawk Eye doesn’t have to do this prediction – that how will the ball behave after pitching on the wicket.  

Except in cases where there is an impact on the full, like in the case of a full toss, the ball has already travelled a distance, howsoever small, after pitching on the surface. What that means is that the trajectory has already been decided. The Hawk Eye simply uses technology to complete the ‘path of the ball’ which was distorted midway by the incidence of the bat or some part of the batsman’s body or equipment coming in they way. And the Hawk Eye is more than capable of doing this.

We will as of now get into the technology and the techniques that the Hawk Eye employs to arrive at its prediction on the ‘unfinished’ path of the delivery. However, if you are still a sceptic and don’t trust that the Hawk Eye can do this prediction accurately, I have one question:

Do you seriously believe that ONE human being standing 22 yards away from the point of impact has a better chance of predicting this ‘unfinished path’ of the delivery better than someone/something which has the benefit of seeing and analysing the ‘impact’ over multiple times and at a slower speed when  it becomes easier to see, follow and decide?

If you are still not convinced, ask yourself this one last question: Did you not feel more convinced of what actually happened after watching a REPLAY the last time you saw a match of cricket?