The Champions Trophy has seen some technological innovations and, inevitably, the rush of criticism has followed. Javed Miandad and Matthew Hayden have led the way, the current batting star beating the veteran by several hours. Hayden’s query was whether the third umpire should call ‘‘no-ball’’ instead of the bowler’s umpire. As it is a major departure from Law 24 section 5, notes one and two (fair delivery — the feet), the argument voiced by Hayden was that the TV umpire would give the bowler too much leeway. Tight line-calls would, he claimed, be missed. Umpires wearing an earpiece was ‘‘all wrong’’, Hayden said, adding that the mat system of lbw decision judgments was ‘‘often better than that of the umpire — few get it right’’. The third umpire, he feels, should be able to overrule the bowler’s umpire as he gets a better idea of what is going to happen than the umpire out there. Miandad said Champions Trophy 2004 was not the right forum for the ICC to experiment with playing conditions and laws. His objection to calls coming from the third umpire is that they take away that extra split-second from the batsman. ‘‘That advantage is now gone. In our days, we used to swing our bat in an effort to score maximum runs immediately after hearing a no-ball call. Now the best that can happen to a batsman is that he can resume his innings after being dismissed off a no-ball. If I was playing today, I would be very unhappy with this rule’’, Miandad said. He has also pointed out that being wired will surely confuse the umpires. ‘‘Already there is plenty of noise on the ground, especially when it is a Pakistan-India game; how will the umpires judge which sound is that involving the ball and the bat and the ball and the pad? Instead of making the right decisions, they (umpires) will start making wrong decisions (which could come) at crucial stages of the game.’’ However, Hayden’s theory of the umpire and the mat visual was shot down by England captain Michael Vaughan, and not without reason. ‘‘I do have reservations about the use of certain types of technology’’, said Vaughan. ‘‘I am not at all convinced, for example, that Hawkeye is always 100 per cent right on lbw decisions because the umpire in the middle is still the person who is best placed to judge how the pitch is behaving and what the ball is doing.’’ As one person more directly involved than the players, New Zealand umpire Billy Bowden has a different slant on the technology subject and how it should be handled. ‘‘What we have to remember’’, he said, ‘‘is that it is a sport, and as with all sports, humans play it: it is a team game and all about skills and ability. The team that makes the least mistakes — not the umpires — wins a match. Umpires make mistakes but possibly one in every 50 Tests or 50 limited overs internationals are lost because of an umpiring decision.” Before the tournament began, Dave Richardson, the ICC’s general manager (cricket), has said that umpires standing in seven of the 15 ICC Champions Trophy matches would wear an earpiece that picks up the audio from the stump microphone as the ball passes the batsman. The trial is designed to indicate whether the microphone’s position close to the action will provide audible assistance to officials in cases that are sometimes difficult to pick up, such as thin nicks or bat pad catches. When contacted on the issue Richardson agreed that before ‘‘hard and fast decisions were made’’ there would be a need to talk to the TV engineers and other technical advisors about the accuracy of the decisions and if this improved the game as well as helping the umpires in making decisions. ‘‘All involved need to be satisfied one way or the other whether it is the right technology and that it can be used in Tests as well as World Cup matches’’, he explained. ‘‘It is so important to get it right.’’ Incidentally, none of the Champions Trophy 02 experiments in Colombo were used in CWC03 six months later.
