Joe Root was given out on review when Hawk-Eye showed that Ravichandran Ashwin's delivery HAD pitched in line with the leg stump
Joe Root LBW Decision Shows How The DRS Process Must Change
By Michael Vaughan
Technology has been a big talking point in this series and as a broadcaster, former player and viewer it has got me thinking about how cricket does not help itself in this department, and what we can do to improve the game for all of us here.
The first thing to say is that fundamentally I like technology in the game. But that does not mean we should not be striving for improvements wherever we can.
Second, is that I think England have done a bit too much moaning about it in this series. Yes, there have been a couple of strange-looking decisions ( see the most controversial ones below ). Ollie Pope has had a couple of LBWs in the first innings in the last two Tests. Zak Crawley has had a couple too, the one where Kuldeep Yadav trapped him leg-before in Vizag, and the one in Rajkot that saw the match referee seek out Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum to explain that there had been a little error in the pictures shown on screen .
I understand how in the high-pressure environment of a massive Test series the world can feel like it is against you, but it is not why England are in the situation they find themselves in in this game or this series. That is because, just like in Rajkot, on moving day, day three, they let the game slip. They need to think long and hard about why that is happening, and it is really not because of DRS, even if Joe Root is a very important player and his decision today was very marginal.
That decision is the perfect illustration of what I would change. Live, to the naked eye, it does not look out because you do not think it is going to be pitching in line. Then when the Hawk-Eye footage comes up, I cannot tell with my naked eye whether it is in line or not. On the screen it comes up red, red, red. I look at it once and say it is more than half in, then look at it again and think the opposite. Now my conclusion is that “jeez, Joe is unlucky, but I back the technology because what choice do I have?”
Despite the evidence of Hawk-Eye plenty of viewers did not believe that the Root delivery had actually pitched in line
It only takes one look at social media to see that a lot of people do not trust it. There is so much anger and suspicion about decisions that go for or against certain teams. There is suspicion about host broadcasters and who is in the truck. That is despite the technology companies not actually being from the same country as the host broadcaster. For instance, Hawk-Eye is a company from the UK but is being used in this series. They are just brought in by the host broadcaster.
So here is a simple solution to help improve transparency and accountability: stick a camera and microphone in the truck so as a decision is being made, we all know exactly what is going on, and how much humans are involved. And if you stick an ICC official in there as well, we would know that the integrity – something we talk so much about in the game – is intact. You could argue that those running the technology in the truck are as important as the two standing umpires.
Technology in other sports like football or rugby clearly is not perfect but that is something they do better than cricket. It is more accountable and transparent, and we can watch the decision being made.
It would be so much better for everyone – the players, the broadcasters, the technology companies, and the viewers – if there was a camera in the truck that showed us that decision being made, so we can all follow the process. The umpire makes the signal for DRS and we go straight to the truck and show us exactly how we come to the final decision.
Quite a lot of players who have spent their life in the game do not even understand what is happening. An example would be how many do not know that you cannot have an umpire’s call for where the ball pitches, like in the Root decision (because for that part of the decision it is not predictive, it is just a fact). A lack of understanding might be why you get comments like England’s throughout the series. With a bit more explanation and accountability from the truck, there could easily have been no noise about the Root decision at all.
This is 2024. Ultimately the amount of technology we have in the game is only going to grow so for the sake of transparency and accountability we might as well have everyone involved having total understanding of what is going on. - The Telegraph
