Challenging umpires’ decisions

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The four Test series between the West Indies and England will feature the umpire challenging system, whereby batsmen can remove one of their gloves, slap the umpire across the face with it and call for lbw shouts to be decided by a duel.

Either that or you get a few chances to have batsmen reinstated when they’re out to a low catch. Because even though everyone knows they’re out, you can’t really say that for definite from what you see on the telly. The batsman gets the benefit of the TV doubt.

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10 comments

  1. yes…its pity…

    bowlers wont get away with lbw’s where balls pitches clearly outside leg stumps…and teams claiming half vollys as catches and get away with it coz they appeal good…

    where we can spend endless time to see whether foot of a fielder was tucking the boundary rope…but wont spare a moment for a decision which can potentially alter the course of a match or a career…

    how pity…

  2. I’m all for a review system of sorts, but the system used in the Sri Lanka – India series (which I’m guessing will be the same one used against the Windies) has its problems.

    Notably, the original umpire has to decide whether or not to overturn his original decision based on the review umpire’s opinion.

    Why not just have a text vote and be done with it? Or an online poll, Jrod-style: “Is Pietersen (a) Out; (b) Not Out (c) an uncaring mercenary; (d) the next American Idol?”.

  3. LOL @ Webster,

    I think the referral system is a good one, although I was against it for ages, the biggest issue in the whole thing is how long a team takes before its sent for review.

    In the SL IND series ppl took ages to decide to go for a review. Like Mahela would check with his bowler and keeper and take about 2 mins before calling for it. There is a loop hole in there. I hope its fixed for this Eng WI series otherwise it just leads to trouble.

    The 3rd it self wont make any decisions , he will jst help the onfield dude make up his mind.

    Maybe ICCs way of trying to retain the human element.

  4. Benefit of the doubt has to go to the on-field umpire’s original decision NOT the batsman. If that happens, all is well with the world, poverty ends and world peace begins.

  5. Think they ought to go the Lalit Modi way and whoever can stump up the most cash gets the decision

  6. We think the benefit of the doubt should go alongside the person referring the referral to the original decision by the on and off-field umpires, in cases where the referred decision has been made and rejected by the appealing captain in agreement with all umpires and the batsman.

  7. Damith, I reckon the time aspect will even itself out — after all, teams nowadays have to stick to fairly strict over rates.

    In the SL-Ind series, Mahela just seemed to use the system better. Could this be one where the role of the captain becomes even more important?

  8. Mahinda
    I am not so sure, Sometimes Mahela spent a really long time before he called for the replay, Which I dint really think was appropriate. Sometimes even after the ball was dead.

    I thought they were going to refine that rule or something. Not sure what happened to it.

    And yes Mahela definitely was better at using the review system to our advantage. I think we led the overturned decisions by a long way.

    I think the system works but it needs to be tweaked in certain areas.

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