Yet another Friday for me, the weekend holiday - the equivalent of a Saturday or a Sunday to this part of the world where I am at present. As I write this, the first day's play of the third test match between Sri Lanka and India is underway. Already (at the time of my writing this) seven Indian wickets are down, out of which four (Rahul, Sachin, Gautam and one more, and probably one more which I can't confirm as I did not follow the telecast in full) were confirmed by "technology" - the third umpire who "sits upstairs", the favoured phrase for Gregg Chappel who is commentating. Out of those four or five decisions, three were reversals of decisions made at the middle, on the ground. In other words, India would only have been 198-3 as against 198-7 where they are now.
I was thinking - does this take certain desirable things away from this game which used to be called at one time, the "game of glorious uncertainties..."? Does this take the life and sheen out of a game which used to rely on human judgements - never infallible but exciting neverthless? Hasn't it made the game a bit boring, by going in for clinical "exactitude" at the expense of "errors and omissions" likely by human intervention?
I am aware tennis matches have started relying on technology of late, on line calls and the like, but what needs to be borne in mind here is that unlike in tennis, the chance of a batsman in an cricket innings gets extinguished with that decision. In tennis, the same player can continue to play but in cricket that is not the case. Secondly, if technology is going to be used in the manner it is used now, then why call the ground umpires by that name? Their positions have, one could argue, been relegated to someone acting in between the players and the "appelate tribunal" sitting upstairs.
Anyway, mine was just a random thought, and on further reflection, I myself could think of several arguments to the opposite. And I know there are lines of reasoning to the contrary - such as "when technology available, why not use it to the betterment of the game". etc. May be correct, isn't it? But then the question always remains - is the third umpire seeing an exact picture of what happened on the ground? So long as it is "garbage in garbage out", who can say for sure that garbage does not go in?
again just a thought this...
I was thinking - does this take certain desirable things away from this game which used to be called at one time, the "game of glorious uncertainties..."? Does this take the life and sheen out of a game which used to rely on human judgements - never infallible but exciting neverthless? Hasn't it made the game a bit boring, by going in for clinical "exactitude" at the expense of "errors and omissions" likely by human intervention?
I am aware tennis matches have started relying on technology of late, on line calls and the like, but what needs to be borne in mind here is that unlike in tennis, the chance of a batsman in an cricket innings gets extinguished with that decision. In tennis, the same player can continue to play but in cricket that is not the case. Secondly, if technology is going to be used in the manner it is used now, then why call the ground umpires by that name? Their positions have, one could argue, been relegated to someone acting in between the players and the "appelate tribunal" sitting upstairs.
Anyway, mine was just a random thought, and on further reflection, I myself could think of several arguments to the opposite. And I know there are lines of reasoning to the contrary - such as "when technology available, why not use it to the betterment of the game". etc. May be correct, isn't it? But then the question always remains - is the third umpire seeing an exact picture of what happened on the ground? So long as it is "garbage in garbage out", who can say for sure that garbage does not go in?
again just a thought this...
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