Archive for December, 2008
Perhaps it’s time for one day cricket to adopt a tie breaker
Posted by: | CommentsAs the southern summer heats up and players from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa and the West Indies prepare to don the coloured uniforms for their respecive ODI series, perhaps it’s time for cricket to adopt a tiebreaker in these games.
There is nothing more exciting than a game being decided by the last swing of the bat in a One Dayer, but occasionally that one swing can’t propel either team to victory. While ties are unusual in One Day cricket, happening in around one out of 200 matches, they do feel like a let down for both sets of supporters.
One Day cricket was born as a television spectacle with an emphasis on entertainment and recent innovations, such as the power plays, have been brought in to enhance the entertainment factor. The most recent change to the game sees one of the power plays in the control of the batting team, the intention of this change is so that teams can take a power play late in the innings and score runs with some big hitting. Again, all about entertainment.
In the short short form of the game, Twenty20, there have been just three international games which have finished in a tie. Two of these ties were broken by a “bowl-off” while the most recent one, between New Zealand and the West Indies, was decided by a “one over eliminator”.
For mine, the bowl off always felt somewhat ill-conceived as five bowlers from each team had two attempts at hitting unguarded stumps. Cricket is primarily about a contest between the batsman and the bowler, and if you take the batsman away from the contest it ceases to be cricket.
Now the one over eliminator seems to be an almost perfect way to decide ties. Both teams nominate three batsman and one bowler, then attempt to score as many runs as possible. Chris Gayle’s huge hitting provided wonderful drama at Eden Park, while New Zealand’s Jacob Oram and Jesse Ryder both smashed balls over the boundaries, they then both got out handing the West Indies the win.
The only thing not to like about the one over eliminator is the name. For some reason the name “eliminator” conjures up memories of American Gladiators in my head, perhaps “Single Over Shootout” might be a better name. In fact, I think I might have to copyright that myself.
Many other sports have tie breakers in their laws, specifically to increase the tension and drama of a close match. Football has the penalty shootout, perhaps the most pressure in all of sports, while rugby league and NFL have sudden death extra time, when every pass, run and kick has the potential to end the game. Why shouldn’t cricket follow suit and give the fans the most exciting finish possible, even in the event of a tie.
Perhaps technology isn’t the answer for cricket
Posted by: | CommentsAfter watching the two tests between New Zealand and the West Indies, the second series to use the experimental referral system, it seems that adding more technology to combat contentious umpiring decisions could be detrimental to the game, attacking one of the fundamental principles of the game: the benefit of the doubt goes to the batsman.
The first test of the year, between Australia and India in Sydney, ignited a firestorm of controversy over a number of contentious umpiring decisions and how both teams reacted to them. The Indians felt that they had been on the receiving end of incompetant umpiring, while the Aussies came under fire for the way they conducted themselves when decisions went against them.
During this time Sportingo was flooded with articles examining all viewpoints and opinions, and some, myself included, called for the adoption of more technology, pointing out that the viewers at home were being presented with more information that the umpires on the field.
The ICC’s trial of a referral system is well designed and well intentioned. Both teams can refer an umpires decision to the third umpire for further examination and can do so unsuccessfully three times per innings, if the referral is successful it does not count against the team.
Daniel Flynn became the first batsman in New Zealand to fall victim to the referral system, initially given not out lbw off the bowling of West Indian captain Chris Gayle, but given out by the third umpire. Flynn was given not out as the ball appeared to strike him outside the line of off stump, but in super slow motion and with the assistance of hawkeye the ball did strike him in line, barely.
While Flynn’s dismissal was the first, it was the dismissal of Denesh Ramdin which highlighted the flaws in the current system. Firstly, the decision took around five minutes to come down from third umpire Rudy Koertzen which left the crowd, players and viewers bored and confused.
But the bigger issue was the method of dismissal, LBW to a ball which appeared to be missing leg stump. For years there seems to have been some shrinking of the size of the stumps in the minds of umpires, frequently giving not out decisions to ball which may have been hitting leg stump, in fact some umpires seem to take leg stump completely out of the LBW equation all together. But with the ability to freeze frame and mark exactly where the ball stuck the batsman, plus enough time to example all 24 camera angles, suddenly the benefit of the doubt goes out the window.
Former New Zealand wicketkeeper Ian Smith, after seeing this decision, said he would like to have been a bowler had decisions like that been given in his day, while former bowler Simon Doull jokingly announced he would be coming out of retirement.
Perhaps referrals are the way to go in the future, they certainly would have done a lot to defuse the controversy in Sydney at the beginning of the year, but the current system needs some tweaks. A time limit would be a good start, but there still needs to be an option for the third umpire to give the benefit of the doubt to the batsman, this is the golden rule of umpiring and no amount of technology should replace that.
Time for rugby to think outside the box
Posted by: | CommentsWhile watching the England vs New Zealand test match at the weekend, I was once again struck by a gap in the laws of rugby and how referees often find themselves trapped by this hole and how perhaps the game needs to adapt to fill it.
What was the incident that sparked this train of thought was the high tackle by Toby Flood on Jimmy Cowan. As high tackles go, this one was, to my mind, somewhere in the middle of the scale. In Flood’s favour was that he didn’t hit Cowan with a stiff arm, nor did he cause any injury at all, but counting against him is the fact that he aimed high, and was the last defender who could have stopped Cowan, although a speedy winger may have caught him in a 60m foot race to the line.
But was it really deserving of a yellow card? The case can be made either way, but it seems to me that a yellow card is too harsh, and a talking to by the referee too soft, and this is the gap I’m referring to.
What rugby needs is the equivalent of football’s yellow card, a caution that allows the player to stay on the field, but lets him know that further offences will see him leave. For the sake of continuity, let’s colour this card green.
And much like the other cards found in rugby, where two yellows is a red, two greens is a yellow. This would allow referees to dish out sanctions to players for incidents such as Flood’s tackle, without unduly penalising the team by leaving them a man short for 10 minutes.
While the green card shouldn’t replace general warnings, like the ones given to England for infringing at the tackle, it would allow referees the flexibilty to deal with one off incidents.
In the same vein, rugby could ammend the current ass of a law regarding penalty tries due to foul play. A couple of weeks back we saw Irish winger Tommy Bowe sin binned after deliberately batting the ball away from Richie McCaw preventing a probable try.
Referee Mark Lawrence correctly ruled this as a penalty try, with a little help from the TMO, but then found himself shackled by a law which requires him to dish out a yellow or red card to the player whose foul play prevented the try from being scored. Something of a double whammy when it comes to being penalised, seven points against and then facing the next 10 minutes with one less player. If a green card were available to Lawrence as well, perhaps Bowe could have remained on the field.
The experimental laws are certainly a step in the right direction, but perhaps it’s time rugby tried something a bit further outside the box, and personally I think the green card would be a step in the right direction.
