Umpires Oxenford and Harper provide ammunition for BCCI’s anti-DRS crusade

Umpire Brune Oxenford has a less than ordinary record as a television umpire and one could have accepted the Michael Hussey bloomer as irritating, but expected. However, his putting the blame on technology may have queered the pitch forDecision Review System (DRS) — writes Arunabha Sengupta

 

Umpire Brune Oxenford has a less than ordinary record as a television umpire and one could have accepted the Michael Hussey bloomer as irritating, but expected. However, his putting the blame on technology may have queered the pitch for Decision Review System (DRS) — writes Arunabha Sengupta

During the recently-concluded Pakistan-England Test series in the United Arab Emirates, many a batsman walking back to the pavilion may have stumbled on a terrifying epiphany — the finger used for the push-button is generally the same dreaded one raised to declare him out.

 

And the huge number leg before wicket victims falling to the Decision Review System (DRS) during the series could well wonder whether this curious correlation actually implied causation.

 

Perhaps, if one conducts Dan Ariely type of experiments to explore anchoring reflexes associated with the index finger of a cricket umpire, some subconscious bias may be detected. Combining this with the rigours of officiating in two Test matches in the sultry Middle Eastern heat, one could have framed a valid excuse for Bruce Oxenford suddenly zeroing in on the ‘Out’ button when the appeal for stumping against Mike Hussey was referred to him.

 

To err is human, claiming not to may be catastrophic

 

Seen in this context, one could indeed find flaws and incompetency in the faux pas, much as Ravi Shastri and Wasim Akram did with some cruel relish. But, since he communicated the correct decision to the on-field umpires, Billy Bowden and Steve Davis, before the ‘victim’ — Michael Hussey — had left the field, one could probably categorise the bloomer under human error.

 

Maybe given enough time to heal the wound of his lightning handiwork being marred by some lousy finger-work, even Mahendra Singh Dhoni would have seen the lighter side of it.

 

After all Oxenford does not have the best credentials as a television umpire. He had floundered through the infamous Sydney Test of 2008, and did not use his misguided finger to point out the error when Simon Fry ended a Lasith Malinga over with a ball to go in the current CB series.

 

Some romantics perhaps even thought of thanking him for bringing back to the game that quaint attribute of mortal fallibility of umpires — an endearing aspect that seems on the verge of disappearance under the rapid strides of technology.

 

However, the umpire from Gold Coast burnt his erring finger, and singed the DRS advocates, when he claimed to the Gabba officials that it was technology that goofed up and not he, Bruce ‘Almighty’. He had supposedly pressed the right button, but propelled by faulty wiring or a wicked sense of humour, the system had suddenly decided to disagree and give Hussey out.

 

Technicians, unsurprisingly, could not quite replicate the glitch, and what remained in the aftermath of uncertainty were seeds of doubt fast burgeoning into misgivings.

 

For the technically minded, it is more than difficult to believe that a system based on software and structurally as simple as signalling “Out” or “Not Out” at the click of two distinct buttons will produce the wrong result once and then resume work without a hitch.

 

And it is also quite evident that in the modularised world of technology, the wiring of response buttons has little or no connection with the quality and authenticity of Hotspots and Snickometers.

 

However, one cannot expect the entire cricketing fraternity to think like object-oriented programmers. If users of the system report faults in a part of the technology, it does make one look suspiciously at the rest of it.

 

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has always stood adamantly against DRS and the important voices of Shastri and Sunil Gavaskar have loudly echoed this stance. A major argument of the anti-DRS brigade is that the technology is not fool-proof, and starting from the English summer, this has been repeated often enough at every available opportunity.

 

It may not be very farfetched to state that Oxenford’s claim of technical malfunction, honest or not, has provided them with new ammunition to blast away any argument in favour of technology.
Daryl Harper plays a different tune

 

Already Daryl Harper, who had termed India’s refusal to use DRS as ludicrous, has said in an interview during the innings break of the match on February 21, 2012 ODI that he agrees to a large extent with BCCI’s stand on technology. He went on to state that during the World Cup, umpires could view the action at 50 frames a second and the ball could often travel close to a metre between successive frames. Hence, between frames, the ball could very well be bouncing or clipping the gloves with no way of knowing anything about it.

 

Harper, who had claimed that the BCCI was holding the cricket world to ransom on the subject of DRS, now seems to indicate that the board had their finger on the problem all through. It seems that DRS is not only forcing umpires to reverse their decisions but also their stances.

 

And while such finger pointing and confused fingers on the buttons do make things uncomfortable for the International Cricket Council (ICC), BCCI seems to have been provided the license to seal the issue by giving DRS the good old middle finger.
(Arunabha Sengupta is trained from Indian Statistical Institute as a Statistician. He works as a Process Consultant, but purifies the soul through writing and cricket, often mixing the two into a cleansing cocktail. The author of three novels, he currently resides in the incredibly beautiful, but sadly cricket-ignorant, country of Switzerland. You can know more about him from his author site, his cricket blogs and by following him on Twitter)

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