I’ve avoided it so far, and I know it fired many a debate in the cricket circles over the weekend as the ICC’s latest attempt to fiddle about with a game that has functioned perfectly well for 130 or so years at test level is experimented with at the top level. Why the hell can’t they leave the game well alone?

 

I hear this mantra on and on and on “we want the correct decisions”. To me this is up there with the “the fans love penalty shoot outs” for imposing whims and ill-thought through gimmicks into international sport. We also have the “we have the technology, so let’s use it” line which is also the preserve of the retired player, not the one out in the middle – well, some claim to speak for them – and although I’m loathe to quote waster Harmison on anything, he hits it bang on the mark here…

 

Harmison added: “I had come into the day already baffled by what I and umpire Tony Hill were convinced was a perfectly good Test wicket taken away from me by a bloke watching the telly.

“And I have to say, such is my continuing confusion, that I fear the new TV referral system is in danger of making a mockery of the time-honoured authority of officials on the field.”

Absolutely. I am sorry if I am a bit old school, but there is something wrong with a batsman, or a fielder, having seen an umpiring decision go “that’s not out”. We’ve all been given a rough decision or two, even in club cricket. God, I was steaming when Bushman gave me out LBW when it hit me above the thigh pad and I was on 62 and batting really well for once in my life. I went divvy when a ball aimed four square at my head on the full was spooned up in the air as I used my bat for protection and was caught, with neither umpire knowing the rules. But I walked off the field. I once thought a ball had bounced in front of slip, and asked the fielder if he caught it – he said yes, so I walked. I could have caused a scene, but you accept it. And I’m having to pay to play, not be rewarded handsomely!

 

Umpiring errors are a part of the game, and the problem isn’t so much the errors, it’s the players kicking up. When India were allowed to get away with their shenanigans in the aftermath of the Sydney test, where two neutral umpires conspired to make bad decisions under pressure from the equally culpable ethical Australians, the die were cast for the man behind the bails. Now with all manner of technology second guessing everything for us all to see, the umpire is left feeling decidedly exposed, and as Bob Willis said on the TV last week, as sure as you can be, this will lead to the game having two standing umpires holding jumpers and counting to six, with all big decisions referred.

 

Now with the new system you are castigated as a skipper if you accept the umpires decision, and lauded if you question it. Hasn’t something really gone wrong here.

 

Before anyone points out the run-out and stumpings issues, let me say that this is where an umpire is asking for help in making a decision which the camera can decided definitively (usually – Simon Taufel, the greatest current umpire showed how much you can f*ck that up in Sydney in 1999). Here the player is saying “umpire, you are wrong, I know you are, and let me see if I can get away with this”. Sky and TMS have seven hours of time to fill and love to generate the debate. This does it perfectly. I just don’t like it. After all, what would we have to talk about if all decisions are sterilised and subject to review every five minutes?