DRS - umpires call

Lots of debate and grumbling by the likes of Beefy today over the umpires call aspect of DRS on lbw decisions.

Essentially he and several others are suggesting, nay demanding, that if the fielding side appeals, gets turned down by on field ump, goes for DRS only for the ball to be predicted to be clipping stumps and therefore on field umps call stands that they should not lose the review.

Where do you guys stand on that?

I can't recall with 100% clarity why the DRS was introduced, so if anyone has chapter and verse on it then please chip in - but in my mind it was intended to be a protection mechanism for either the bowling or batting side against massive howlers by the ump. Thereby lessening the chances of a test being turned on an appalling umpiring call/non-call, arrived at either through incompetence or through more dubious influences.

As such, and I think this especially relates to lbw decisions, if the bowling team decides to challenge an umpires call only for DRS to show it's clipping a stump and is therefore marginal then I think they should lose that challenge. Why? As, I think, in a way they're gambling with it (not to mention kind of calling into question the on field umps ability) and not using it in what I believe (perhaps mistakenly) is the way it was designed to be used.

The panel on Sky (Willis, Butcher and Sohail) seemed to be with Beefy on this. Colville, rarely, raised an interesting point I'd never thought of - if the rules were altered so that in the above instance the challenge was restored then surely we'd end up wasting loads of playing time reviewing umpteen decisions every day.

Wade in fellas.

DRS is for howlers. Captains today "gamble" far too often. Unless you are dead sure it was out and not given, don't review. If you review based on "ooh that might have been clipping" i.e. not a howler, then you are flouting the original intention of the rule. If you gamble and lose, bad luck. That's what a gamble is.

Leave it the way it is, IMHO.

skully wrote:DRS is for howlers. Captains today "gamble" far too often. Unless you are dead sure it was out and not given, don't review. If you review based on "ooh that might have been clipping" i.e. not a howler, then you are flouting the original intention of the rule. If you gamble and lose, bad luck. That's what a gamble is.

Leave it the way it is, IMHO.

Nicely put. Looks like me and you see it pretty much in the same way.

I'd 100% leave it as it is. The whole point of umpire's call is that it's a marginal decision and, in essence, whichever way the umpire calls is correct. As mentioned, DRS is there to eradicate howlers. 40% of the ball hitting the leg stump isn't a howler. If it didn't hit that batsman's leg, it would have gone on to get them out.

The thing that gets me is that, after being a part of DRS for so long, players still don't seem able to grasp that the review is likely to go the way of the umpire's call. How many times have you seen the captain, wickie or batsman up the other end say 'umpire's call'. The amount of times you watch from a worse vantage point (i.e. your television) and you know that a review is going in favour of the umpire's call... loads.

It's not broke. Don't attempt to fix.

Brass Monkey wrote:I'd 100% leave it as it is. The whole point of umpire's call is that it's a marginal decision and, in essence, whichever way the umpire calls is correct. As mentioned, DRS is there to eradicate howlers. 40% of the ball hitting the leg stump isn't a howler. If it didn't hit that batsman's leg, it would have gone on to get them out.

The thing that gets me is that, after being a part of DRS for so long, players still don't seem able to grasp that the review is likely to go the way of the umpire's call. How many times have you seen the captain, wickie or batsman up the other end say 'umpire's call'. The amount of times you watch from a worse vantage point (i.e. your television) and you know that a review is going in favour of the umpire's call... loads.

It's not broke. Don't attempt to fix.

Yep - agree. Do you think the reason the ex-players are getting uppity about it is that they just can't look at it (relatively) objectively? They still seem to carry the grievance of a current player.

Misbah deadset wasted two reviews last night. On original viewing both lbw calls looked to be sliding past (one past off v Chef, and one past leg v Root). The reviews showed clipping, but in both cases the original umpire's call looked spot on to me.

Having said that, Moeen also wasted one for England. Did he think he'd hit the one that dismissed him? Cos it was sure plumb otherwise. Dunno what Chef was doing letting him review.

Lindsay no.2 wrote:

Brass Monkey wrote:I'd 100% leave it as it is. The whole point of umpire's call is that it's a marginal decision and, in essence, whichever way the umpire calls is correct. As mentioned, DRS is there to eradicate howlers. 40% of the ball hitting the leg stump isn't a howler. If it didn't hit that batsman's leg, it would have gone on to get them out.

The thing that gets me is that, after being a part of DRS for so long, players still don't seem able to grasp that the review is likely to go the way of the umpire's call. How many times have you seen the captain, wickie or batsman up the other end say 'umpire's call'. The amount of times you watch from a worse vantage point (i.e. your television) and you know that a review is going in favour of the umpire's call... loads.

It's not broke. Don't attempt to fix.

Yep - agree. Do you think the reason the ex-players are getting uppity about it is that they just can't look at it (relatively) objectively? They still seem to carry the grievance of a current player.

I can't really put myself in their shoes. They do all seem uppity about it. I just thought it was some unspoken thing that I couldn't understand about. Like One Direction. Or 50 Shades Of Grey.

If teams don't lose a review for deliveries that are clipping, then we will only have 80 overs in a day's play. Captains will be much more inclined to review if they know they have a good chance of not losing the review if it's clipping.

Definitely - most serious LB appeals are at least clipping the stumps. Even half of Shane Watson's reviews were clipping.

skully wrote:Misbah deadset wasted two reviews last night. On original viewing both lbw calls looked to be sliding past (one past off v Chef, and one past leg v Root). The reviews showed clipping, but in both cases the original umpire's call looked spot on to me.

Having said that, Moeen also wasted one for England. Did he think he'd hit the one that dismissed him? Cos it was sure plumb otherwise. Dunno what Chef was doing letting him review.

Sympathy vote? He's one of his favourite pets and he was hoping to not have to put the bolt gun into that turkey's head just before the SA tour, it being Xmas and all.

Brass Monkey wrote:Definitely - most serious LB appeals are at least clipping the stumps. Even half of Shane Watson's reviews were clipping middle, the rest were smacking middle full on.

Comme ca?

WideWally wrote:If teams don't lose a review for deliveries that are clipping, then we will only have 80 overs in a day's play. Captains will be much more inclined to review if they know they have a good chance of not losing the review if it's clipping.

Spot on Wally - that's what Charles Colville was driving at on TV today. It didn't seem to sink in with the assembled ex-players on the panel and I suspect Beefy will not move away from his stance. Let's hope the ICC sticks with it as is - although maybe going down to 80 overs a day is part of their plan to slowly chip away at tests until they go 'Aww ****** it, let's just have one type of game - and that game is 20/20, fireworks and music and Dwayne Bravo is our hero.'

Review all dismissals

Umpire to call for a review of close not outs

Fielding team to have 3 reviews of decisions umpires refuse to review

Call it the Umpires Difficult Decision Eradication Review Systems

embee wrote:Review all dismissals

Umpire to call for a review of close not outs

Fielding team to have 3 reviews of decisions umpires refuse to review

Call it the Umpires Difficult Decision Eradication Review Systems

Might struggle to even have enough time to play a 20/20 with your new UDDERS system. Should we just reduce the game to 2 blokes tossing a coin in the morning and the bloke who calls correctly wins the match.

One review. I've always said it.

DRS is for obviously wrong decisions, so take the speculative review out of the equation.

Of course, it's all a bit of a farce when certain series don't have all the approved technology available, and others flat out refuse to have any of it. But that's a whole other bag of dicks.

and thats a classic example of a speculative referral. it looked like it was down the leg side and so it was. wasted time and effort

Lindsay no.2 wrote:

embee wrote:Review all dismissals

Umpire to call for a review of close not outs

Fielding team to have 3 reviews of decisions umpires refuse to review

Call it the Umpires Difficult Decision Eradication Review Systems

Might struggle to even have enough time to play a 20/20 with your new UDDERS system. Should we just reduce the game to 2 blokes tossing a coin in the morning and the bloke who calls correctly wins the match.

Boohoo. So the captains will have to manage their time to get the required number of overs in.

Oh wait.......

Like the other cricket lovers here (as opposed to those on TV who just happened to be good at it) the current system is fine.

DRS is for howlers - the umpire is still the first point of call.

JGK wrote:Like the other cricket lovers here (as opposed to those on TV who just happened to be good at it) the current system is fine.

DRS is for howlers - the umpire is still the first point of call.

And so say all of us. Captains and certain bowlers use them incorrectly. Botham is wrong on this one.

taipan wrote:

JGK wrote:Like the other cricket lovers here (as opposed to those on TV who just happened to be good at it) the current system is fine.

DRS is for howlers - the umpire is still the first point of call.

And so say all of us. Captains and certain bowlers use them incorrectly. Botham is wrong on this one.

Beefy is like English cricket's version of David Cameron - in that whichever side of an issue he is on it's almost certainly the wrong one.

Beefy's commentary consists of saying "There you go. When will they ever learn?" interspersed with long bouts of silence when things are going well or contrary to how he insisted they would.

He'd make an ideal FB forummer. Aside from the whole tweeting dick pics thing.

We frown on that kind of degenerate behaviour. Twitter? Urgh. Grow up.

Dello wrote:He'd make an ideal FB forummer. Aside from the whole tweeting dick pics thing.

theyd be great fodder for the advent calendar