The PlanetCricket View: The Decision Review System

[PlanetCricket]

Article by swacker -

I understand that different people have different views on the Decision Review System (DRS) and the current series-by-series strategy. I have long been an enemy of any additional use of technology in the game, but I want to note just how unjustly skewed the discussion has become. If an umpire makes a call that is confirmed to be ?precise? by Hotspot or Eagle-eye, the commentators will merely note that it was a good decision, and how arduous it is to be an umpire today. If they?re being really generous, they?ll show what the umpire saw in real time. That?s it. If an umpire makes a ?poor? call that is revealed to be as such by technology, however, all hell rifts loose. Little is said about the number of correct decisions that are made, and how they outstrip the poor ones. Even less is said challenging whether or not technology has delivered an ?impartial? review. In other words, the measures are not equally placed: a ?poor? decision receives many times the attention that a good decision does.

When do you feel the greatest unfairness has happened? When a decision is clearly, palpably wrong and the umpire?s incompetence is clear? Or when the decision could have wisely gone your way, but didn?t? It is not a surprise that batsmen are ever ready to ask for reviews in negligible cases. Neither is it surprising that bowlers are willing to ask for reviews in the negligible cases. In fact, it is most likely right to say that the only time when players don?t ask for reviews is when they are certainly sure that the correct decision has been made.

So DRS, which was designed to ensure that decisions which are certainly and obviously wrong (mistakes, not errors) involves a player review which is used by players to ask for reviews in all cases apart from those that are definitely and obviously right. The common clarification for this is that the players are ?misusing? the review. But are they really? Doesn?t the review permit players to ask for reviews in any occasion where they may feel the umpire has made a mistake? The ruling on the field is at odds with what they know. It is not a surprise that technology gets trapped short as often as it does. When marginal cases are reviewed, we are already at the limit of what the evidence from the technology can resolve.

The problem with the DRS is not that the technology is inadequate, it is that technology as an idea is not understood with any subtlety in its application. And it is the player review, and not ball-tracking which is the symbolic example of this problem. It is the hinge on which the DRS turns, because it is the instant which detects which episodes on the field will get shown by technical evidence and which won?t. The player review is what determines whether or not the second mode of ruling will come in. The umpire is better suitable to this task. Unfortunately, the fairly sophomoric view which controls that the DRS is helpful because umpires are inept (i.e. people who are poor at their job) rather than highly skilled people who do a very difficult job involving difficult judgements well, but not absolutely faultlessly, seems to hold a lot of control. This is the sort of thinking that makes it probable for one to think that the players should be permitted to ask for reviews of umpires decisions.

The quandary of the review system is not that there is no technology that can?t display clearly what the truth is, it is that we misjudge technology by trusting that it will relieve us of the need to exercise decision. No serious student of science or technology believes this positivist fable (so mutual in the 50s and 60s). I will make sure I tuck?my bat under my arm and walk off the field without giving him a dirty look, maybe.



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[sifter132]

So DRS, which was designed to ensure that decisions which are certainly and obviously wrong (mistakes, not errors) involves a player review which is used by players to ask for reviews in all cases apart from those that are definitely and obviously right. The common clarification for this is that the players are ?misusing? the review. But are they really? Doesn?t the review permit players to ask for reviews in any occasion where they may feel the umpire has made a mistake? The ruling on the field is at odds with what they know. It is not a surprise that technology gets trapped short as often as it does. When marginal cases are reviewed, we are already at the limit of what the evidence from the technology can resolve.

The bolded sentence is the the crucial question I feel. Sometimes I am of the opinion that players should only be able to challenge decisions that they KNOW are wrong, not just THINK are wrong. eg. this morning we saw perfect use of DRS, where Matthew Wade was given out LBW, he KNEW he'd hit the ball and the decision was wrong. So with just a couple of replays, decision reversed, and it was particular important because if Wade had gone there then it was the bowlers in with still 40-50 to get from memory - so a potentially game changing umpire error was averted. Perfect advertisement for DRS. And that's how I'd like to see DRS used, to right an injustice, not just because you HOPE that you got outside the line or something like that.

Then again... there are some days I feel like Tony Greig who reckons teams should get 5 reviews, to help make sure that anything they want to challenge is able to be challenged.

LBWs seem to be the main point of contention because teams consistently challenge 50/50 calls. So there's a couple of ways to solve that:
1) leave LBWs out of DRS, and instead let umpires themselves refer close ones
2) give teams more reviews so they can challenge more LBWs
3) leave the 2 reviews, but give teams back their review if they were on the wrong side of an 'umpires call' LBW

I think we're almost at the stage where all LBW dismissals could be reviewed, just to confirm the trajectory. Not sure if I like that, but I think the ICC could get away with it, now that crowds, viewers and players are familiar enough with the system. Well the LBW part of the system at least.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

I've just been reading about the incident in the IPL with harbahajan singh and munaf patel, patel bowled sangakkara but the umpires didn't give it, thinking the wicketkeeper had disturbed the stumps. harbahajan bullied the umpire into using the TV umpires, and was then duly proved correct but also fined for going over the top in his insistence.

now, whatever you think of harbahajan singh, this incident is indicative of the problem with DRS, it's not the players, it's the umpires. with player reviews you're having to set up a system were two parties are arguing, the umpire convinced he's right and the players convinced they're right, if DRS is in place the players get to call on technology into their side of the arguement. what this means that all the technology for determining the rules the umpire should be upholding is in the hands of the players.

If hawkeye and hotspot are tools to help judge the correctness of decisions then their application should be in the hands of people whose job it is to come to the correct decisions, not those that are at the mercy of them.

however what this incident showed is that umpires are still unwilling to work alongside technology and would rather have it as their opposition.

 

[swacker]

I've just been reading about the incident in the IPL with harbahajan singh and munaf patel, patel bowled sangakkara but the umpires didn't give it, thinking the wicketkeeper had disturbed the stumps. harbahajan bullied the umpire into using the TV umpires, and was then duly proved correct but also fined for going over the top in his insistence.

Only TV replays are good enough to help umpires in making most of the decisions right. On so many occasions, you see the commentators say that the umpire was right or wrong just by looking at the reviews but the umpire only gets a split second and if he misses a thing, that's it for the player. If the Hotspot is not mature enough, just allow DRS on the basis of TV replays.

There is an interesting subtext to the discussion of "correct" decisions as well. The ICC cites 92% of umpiring decisions as correct and 97% using DRS. But to make that claim they've used the technology to assess "correctness". Which means two things:

a) The limitations of the technology are being ignored ? or not discussed. What percentage of decisions are "controversial", meaning difficult for the umpire, as opposed to clearly not out? What percentage are undecided by the technology; what percentage have been wrong, and how do we assess technology, in order to know what is being correct?

b) The current implementation of DRS is only correcting 62% of wrong decisions, which is quite low. Surely supporters of the idea that "the aim ought to be to get as many correct decisions as possible" are upset that the particular scheme being used has such limited success?

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

ideally, what the technology should result in is players less willing to try and cheat the umpire.

the reason hawkeye was so succesfully implement as a player review system is, prior to it's introduction, tennis had already taken significant non-technological measures to ensure calls were being made correctly by placing multiple line judges to cover every point of the court. this might be a tricky comparison because tennis doesn't really lend itself to obvious cheating but maybe that's because the decisions are so stringently examined.

cricket doesn't have that, an umpire is trying to watch for no balls, count overs, make judgements on both where the ball pitched, where the ball was going, where it came off, or didn't come off, the batsman. All in all you have to say they do a pretty amazing job, but still, they're getting cheated.

some have argued to many reviews will hold up the game, but even a system where the TV umpire was allowed to go on his first impression and relay it to the umpire would help, he doesn't need to always wait for the hawkeye or hotspot data, plenty of times on TV you look at something and go "hmmmm" why can't the TV umpire help in those cases? either with a "hold on a minute while I check that on instances it's close." or a "nah, looked fine to me go for it." even putting this agreement scenario in place would surely help increase correct decisions. technology gives us the opportunity to put another man in the right place to judge decisions, that man is already spare as we have a TV umpire, why not use him?

 

[6ry4nj]

There is an interesting subtext to the discussion of "correct" decisions as well. The ICC cites 92% of umpiring decisions as correct and 97% using DRS. But to make that claim they've used the technology to assess "correctness". Which means two things:

a) The limitations of the technology are being ignored ? or not discussed. What percentage of decisions are "controversial", meaning difficult for the umpire, as opposed to clearly not out? What percentage are undecided by the technology; what percentage have been wrong, and how do we assess technology, in order to know what is being correct?

b) The current implementation of DRS is only correcting 62% of wrong decisions, which is quite low. Surely supporters of the idea that "the aim ought to be to get as many correct decisions as possible" are upset that the particular scheme being used has such limited success?

a) What nonsense! The best possible estimate of the percentage of correct decisions will use all the available technology. Of course it is limited by the limitations of that technology ffs! What you're saying is equivalent to "toss out all the medical research ever done because our microscopes might be flawed".

b) The vast majority of wrong decisions that are not overturned by DRS, are ones that are not referred to it. The only other way I can see that (genuinely) wrong decisions might not be overturned, is if an element of the technology is excluded from the DRS process. And that generally only happens due to the nonsensical opposition to its use, as raised primarily by Indian players and the BCCI as far as I'm aware. Apart from in threads like this, that is...

Of Twain's "lies, damned lies and statistics", your 62% barely even belongs in the third grouping. The actual figure is the 97% correct decisions with DRS. But the only figure that really matters is that more correct decisions are made with DRS than without it. That's the undeniable reason why DRS must be implemented as widely as possible.

If it needs tweaking, that can only be done after it's implemented. Other issues raised regarding DRS can only be red herrings, in that they needlessly complicate something quite simple.

 

[swacker]

ome have argued to many reviews will hold up the game, but even a system where the TV umpire was allowed to go on his first impression and relay it to the umpire would help, he doesn't need to always wait for the hawkeye or hotspot data, plenty of times on TV you look at something and go "hmmmm" why can't the TV umpire help in those cases? either with a "hold on a minute while I check that on instances it's close." or a "nah, looked fine to me go for it." even putting this agreement scenario in place would surely help increase correct decisions. technology gives us the opportunity to put another man in the right place to judge decisions, that man is already spare as we have a TV umpire, why not use him?

This creates an interesting situation. The Umpires made the "precise" decision between them, but under the DRS, their decision was in error. This is due to a condition in the DRS specification which requires that the discussion between the TV Umpire and the on-field Umpire must be about points of fact. The TV Umpire is prohibited from saying whether or not the On-field Umpire made a right decision. His role is limited to providing the On-field Umpire with "facts".

The on-field umpire must then make his decision based on those factual questions that were answered by the TV umpire, any other factual information offered by the TV umpire and his recollection and opinion of the original incident.

The on-field umpire will reverse his decision if the nature of the supplementary information received from the TV umpire when combined with his own recollection and opinion makes it appropriate for him to do so. He must be satisfied with any decision that he makes, since the responsibility for the decision remains with him.

What were the facts supporting the TV Umpire's conclusions? He does get a high specification of audio and video information. Given that the decision was reversed, it must be expected that conclusive proof was suggested to the On-field Umpire to reverse his decision. How can we reconcile this with the fact that the heat autograph registered nothing conclusive? The Player Review involves reversing a decision, while the Umpire Review involves a situation where no decision has been made.

Of Twain's "lies, damned lies and statistics", your 62% barely even belongs in the third grouping. The actual figure is the 97% correct decisions with DRS. But the only figure that really matters is that more correct decisions are made with DRS than without it. That's the undeniable reason why DRS must be implemented as widely as possible.

If it needs tweaking, that can only be done after it's implemented. Other issues raised regarding DRS can only be red herrings, in that they needlessly complicate something quite simple.

But here is where the DRS's problematic nature is exemplified. Far from serving the original purpose of solving "howlers", the DRS has tried to remove marginality. The fact is, that because the technology has its own limitations, it introduces new areas of marginality to the situation. Hotspot doesn't always work. It works in a different way when it is sunny and when it is cloudy. This, in and of itself, is not a problem. It would be a blunder to make the perfect the opponent of the good in the case of DRS.

I assume the DRS's protocol needs important review. While Umpires clearly possess the skill to exercise specific judgements, the procedure, as it is currently written prevents them from doing so. The protocol has to make better use of the Umpire's decision, and hopefully, some day, the ICC will see good sense and reject the Player Review and replace it with a pro-active 3rd Umpire Review.

DRS, as it currently stands, places the Umpire in an irresolvable position, because it prevents them from making the sort of judgement that Umpire Davis appears to have made. Marginality cannot be kept away. And marginality necessary requires inconsistency in verdicts. It will be much better if the ICC's DRS accept this inconsistency by allowing the TV Umpire greater leeway when reviewing an Umpire's on-field decision.