Cricket Australia’s marketing gimmick strips umpires of their independence

Cricket Australia (CA), in tandem with Channel Nine, inflicted on the ongoing One-Day International (ODI) series with South Africa its latest self-serving marketing ploy. This involved the conversation between the on-field umpires and the third umpire under the decision Review system to be aired. Ankur Dhawan analyses its pitfalls.

The endeavour, though well meaning on the face of it, is essentially an attempt at changing the intrinsic character of the game, wherein the lines of sanity and sanctity have both been breached. The outlandishness is perhaps symptomatic of the two aforesaid entities — Cricket Australia and Channel Nine. Remember the skulduggery witnessed during the Big Bash League and the Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) in Australia? The players were subjected to obvious marketing gimmicks by engaging them in conversation with commentators on air at the time of fielding, bowling and batting, as Shane Watson discovered much to his chagrin in a T20 game against South Africa.

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So, on paper, the grand idea is to bring the cricket match to the lounge room, to bridge the gap between the action on the field and the viewer watching it on Channel Nine, to make cricket a ‘truly spectator’ sport.

The idea in turn, is being craftily camouflaged as a move aimed at imparting transparency. But by making the spectator privy to conversations between the on-field umpires and the third umpire during a review, the spectator is virtually being deluded into believing that he is participating in the process of decision making. Another ruse is that the move will improve due diligence on part of the umpires. The hard sell is that the entire exercise will help dispel confusion in the mind of the average spectator by enabling him to sneak into the mind of the umpire. So, theoretically speaking, the process of decision making will become as clear as an “unmuddied lake.”

On the flipside, or perhaps in truth, it actually puts the umpire under the technological scanner which is tantamount to putting him in the dock. Each conversation between the umpires will come under intense public scrutiny which in turn will make the former reactive and defensive in their decision making, spiking their cricketing instincts that they have honed over the years. A lot of times decision making is backed by gut feel, at least in the case of close calls, but the voyeuristic zeal of the TV spectator will negate the essence of umpiring. The idea behind the DRS was to assist accurate decision making, but if this half-baked notion finds acceptance, technology will usurp the game completely, besides leaving the umpires covered with a fig leaf of autonomy.

This will slowly but surely only diminish the human variable in decision making, a lot of which is perceptive. It is hard to even imagine how disconcerting the proverbial eye of the camera might be for the umpires. Sooner or later, they will conclude that they have lost all relevance. They will then just be mannequins in white coats, all dressed up but nowhere to go. The beauty of the game, much like life, lies in its glorious uncertainties. Smug in the belief that we are making the process of the Decision Review System (DRS) more full proof by bringing it in public domain, we are risking losing the human face of it altogether.

(Ankur Dhawan is a reporter with CricketCountry. Heavily influenced by dystopian novels, he naturally has about 59 conspiracy theories for every moment in the game of cricket. On finding a direct link between his head and the tip of his fingers, he also writes about it)