DRS no longer mandatory

[Sureshot]

It's not a potential future for several reasons, not least because you'd have to have someone interpreting the technology, this is why DRS, or any similar technology developed in the future cannot be 100%, there is a human implementation of it in several aspects, from the people creating the technology to the people using it to make decisions, the third umpire at the moment.

You can't have infallible technology given enough scenarios and human inputs. From as simple a task making you to count from one to ten and back to one again, if I ask you to do it enough times, you will make a mistake.

Just as in under certain conditions Hawkeye can have a margin of error as high as about 25mm (think about that in relation to the size of the ball).

An ?extreme? LBW is one where there is less than 40cm of travel between pitching
point and interception point and the batsman is hit over 2 meters from the stumps.

That's still quite low (and a very rare occurrence, too), really. What makes it the most confusing is how there are some people who'd prefer it to be left to umpires, even though their margin of error will be many times greater than that with the dodgy human eye.

Look at the current human element:

Is the Hawk-Eye system fully automatic?
3 Hawk-Eye staff are required to operate the Hawk-Eye system. Their roles include:
1. Lining up and calibrating the cameras
2. Measuring the pitch and the stumps which do vary from ground to ground
3. 1 member of staff is responsible for the virtual reality graphics and offers
LBW replays and all the other Hawk-Eye features to the TV director.
4. The other 2 members of staff both are responsible for the tracking. They work
independently of each other to provide redundancy, but are able to see a
comparison of the two tracks. If they are different for any reason, they can be
pro-active in working out why rather than being re-active after a LBW appeal.
On a ball by ball basis they would do the following:
a. hit a button to tell the system that a ball has been bowled and trigger
the tracking
b. manually fine tune the point on the trajectory where interception with
the batsman was made. Automatically the system is only able to
determine the interception point to the nearest frame of Hawk-Eye
video running at 106 frames per second. This can be improved
manually and is the only way to ensure that the interception point is
accurate to 5mm.
c. Tune settings to account for varying light conditions
d. Tune settings to deal with camera wobble

Of course all technology can be improved over time, it's the very essence of technology, review and improve. It'll improve, but right now I think the bigger problems are with how we make the game work with DRS, not the other way around.

You look at the use of goal line technology in football, it will inevitably happen (when Sepp Blatter gets kicked out, probably). It'll get rid of the horrors, like DRS does, but when it is borderline as to whether it is just over the line or not (like with a catch that is close to the ground), it won't be that helpful with, as it can't be due to the people interpreting the data.

Unfortunately the biggest problem DRS faces is the misconception and misunderstanding of how it works by the people who oppose it.

http://www.hawkeyeinnovations.co.uk/UserFiles/File/Hawk-Eye accuracy and believability2.pdf

Read it, if you haven't already done so. The game is better off with it, I see no logic in the reason behind taking a step backwards and introducing more bad decisions in to the game.

In any case, I don't see DRS ever replacing umpires, it will continue to exist as an umpires aid. Not least because of the points above, but because it'd be against the game and because of the all other stuff umpires do that technology couldn't.

 

[puddleduck]

Come on now Sureshot, of course it isn't currently a future, but then if you'd said 50 years ago that umpires would be able to refer LBW to a video system they'd have thought you were sitting too near the West Indian fans

I'm talking whimsically and hypothetically. So in the event that a DRS system of sorts was tracking every single ball, cameras watching for no-balls (instantly flagged by a big NO-BALL on the big screen and a no-ball shout over the speakers), highly accurate ball-tracking tech that triggers when ball makes contact with pad first. A very fine snicko that instantly kicks into life when the right tone of noise is made etc...

Anyway, when technology reaches this point (and sorry Sure, it actually is when rather than if. Not for the various components of DRS necessarily, but other similar tech will exist - I'm not saying tomorrow though). When it does, would people be happy to see the umpires phased out of international cricket?

There would be the potential to create a completely uniform and completely even system for batsmen and bowlers. The costs to the ICC once the tech was in regular development would be cheaper than consistently retraining umpires/paying for and hiring them. Quite possibly someone would have to sit with the machine, but that's still two umpires less than normal.

Ok, personally I think it's actually a rather grim imagining, and I'm glad it's a long way from even being a pie in the sky. Even the pastry crust isn't close to being ready.

Still, I guess the weird thing is, why would I be against it? Tradition? Well I'm more than happy for DRS in its current form, so why stop there? Why is my 'tradition' more valid than the guy who thinks scrap it all?

Perhaps because I feel a real human will always be needed, as the technology is there to aid, not replace the human worker. Hmm, well there's more than a few global manufacturing firms who would disagree with me there.

So yeah, I'm only really musing, but it leads to some interesting potential paths, and trying to figure out the logical one is tough.

 

[barmyarmy]

Ok, I have a new theory on the DRS. Basically all the arguments about accuracy and tracking are beside the point as is now whether DRS is used or not. It all comes down to the umpires. Most umpires now accept the tracking and are giving lbws they didn't give before. Even if you don't use DRS umpires will still give marginal lbws. The genie is out the bottle.
Once you accept that fact it follows that there's no point not using DRS.

 

[puddleduck]

Have you tried writing it in massive letters on the moon so the BCCI can read it?

 

[sifter132]

Ok, I have a new theory on the DRS. Basically all the arguments about accuracy and tracking are beside the point as is now whether DRS is used or not. It all comes down to the umpires. Most umpires now accept the tracking and are giving lbws they didn't give before. Even if you don't use DRS umpires will still give marginal lbws. The genie is out the bottle.
Once you accept that fact it follows that there's no point not using DRS.

Precisely. Cricket has changed due to ball tracking whether we like it or not. But the killer argument is the one that the UMPIRES THEMSELVES use ball tracking to review their decisions after a match is done. So if the umpiring fraternity use Hawkeye/Eagleeye to judge their own performance, then how can we say that it's not good enough to be used by umpires during a game?

 

[Sureshot]

Come on now Sureshot, of course it isn't currently a future, but then if you'd said 50 years ago that umpires would be able to refer LBW to a video system they'd have thought you were sitting too near the West Indian fans

I'm talking whimsically and hypothetically. So in the event that a DRS system of sorts was tracking every single ball, cameras watching for no-balls (instantly flagged by a big NO-BALL on the big screen and a no-ball shout over the speakers), highly accurate ball-tracking tech that triggers when ball makes contact with pad first. A very fine snicko that instantly kicks into life when the right tone of noise is made etc...

Anyway, when technology reaches this point (and sorry Sure, it actually is when rather than if.)

You're right in that it will get more accurate, but to suggest DRS will eventually be 100% (which is what you were insinuating and what I'm arguing against regardless of your whimsical side ) and that is inevitable is flawed. There will always be a margin of error in the ball tracking (though it's a tiny margin of error now, but, y'know, 100%), I can't see how we can ever have a future improvement with regards to the low catches, even with the inevitable super high definition (3D, holographic, etc) cameras we will have it will always be at the behest of humans, who make mistakes.

That's not me slating DRS, or saying it won't move forward, because it will. I'm just being a pedant, cos y'know, 100%

I look at chaotic days like today, even with a batting collapse I quite enjoyed it, see how DRS played a role in making 16 wickets fall on what is quite a decent sub-continental batting track, see how both sides could have reviewed a wrong decision, but didn't and just find it bemusing given some of the decisions they do review!

Keeper: "Yeah, it's definitely hit him in line and was undoubtedly going to hit the stumps."

Replays showing it hitting him about half a mile outside the off stump and smacking the back row of the crowd behind the batsman in the face!

DRS is here to stay and is livening up Test cricket just when it needed some help. I'm enjoying it, as are the majority of cricket lovers.

 

[Owzat]

If the point is to eliminate glaring errors come gaffes then it shouldn't need to be a zillion percent accurate or need gimmickery.

A replay or three should do enough to reduce those glaring errors, otherwise is it absolutely necessary to get a near perfect decision of whether the bounce would have taken the ball over the stumps, or if it would have gone down leg? What I'm saying is if the human eye can see it pitching outside leg, or missing leg, then go with it. As long as nothing is left so that armchair viewers don't sit there going "well he made a pig's ear of that!" then it's job done.

 

[Sureshot]

I noticed something today that I thought is an area for improvement, high speed cameras for hotspot. It's difficult to pick up a little white spot when the bat is just a blur when there is such a high bat speed.