During the 1st Test between India and England something very curious happened and it seems to have passed over the heads of everyone. As it transpired it hardly mattered as Jimmy Anderson removed Ajinkya Rahane's off stump with the very next delivery. However to leave it there would be to miss the point.
In the above photo you can see the appeal from Anderson which was correctly under the laws of the game given not out by Umpire Nitin Menon. England were of course entitled to review the decision which they did but as more than half the ball was outside the line of off stump at the time of impact with Rahane's pad Menon's decision stood and Rahane survived. All it seems is well. However...
Had Menon raised his finger and given Rahane out this would also have been the correct decision. Rahane could of course have reviewed, and as before the out decision would of been upheld.
So how have we ended up in a scenario where an Umpire can give a batsman not out or out to the same delivery and be correct in either case?
It all comes down to DRS of course, and the inbuilt allowance for error in the ball tracking part of the system. However the inbuilt allowance for the ball tracking being wrong only applies to the predicted path of the ball once it has struck the pad. Due to the wonders of technology we can see the stumps super imposed behind the batsman and we can see in the above photo that a good chunk of the ball is in fact in line with off stump at the point of impact. It is also clear that even if ball tracker had been slightly wrong in it's projected path for the ball that it was going on to hit the stumps. Or to put it another way Rahane was stone dead lbw.
Maybe the bods that came up with the procedure for DRS have overthought the issue, but it is clear that we don't really need "Umpires Call" for impact with the pad, Hawkeye tracks the ball from the bowlers hand until the point it strikes the pad and then using it wizardry predicts the path of the ball from impact with the pad until the point the ball would of reached the stumps.
There is nothing predicted between the ball leaving the bowlers hand and it striking the pad so why do we need to give the umpires a margin of error to work with? Why not just work with what we know to be fact?
I would in these tight calls be happy for England or whatever side was in the field not to lose a review over such a tight call and vice versa for a batting side as is the case now.
I am happy to keep the "Umpires Call" part for the ball actually hitting the stumps because for that the Umpire does actually need to use his/her judgement on the projected path of the ball.
As I said earlier in this case none of this mattered due to what happened the ball after, but one day a Test Match or Series or maybe even a World Cup could be decided on such an issue.
We must clear up the rules so we can decide if a delivery is either out or not out, not both depending on which way the Umpire originally makes up their mind.
11 Feb 2021
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