Video decision-assist research conclusive

With the pre-season competition only forty-four days away — yes, that’s right, 44 days till the Bombers shape up against the Weagles on Feb 12 — the aussierulesblog editorial staff felt it was important to take the opportunity to research a video decision-assistance system. So, we rounded up our sibling and headed off to day three of the Boxing Day test. We were rewarded with three video referrals.

Cricket is a fascinating game and we much prefer the multi-day version to the one day or, heaven forfend, multi-hour versions. There is a subtlety and majesty about first-class cricket that we think no other team game captures. Of course, there are good days and not-so-good days.

Last year, we sat through Dale Steyn and JP Duminy humiliating what was allegedly the Australian attack. This year, we saw nine wickets fall, two excellent 50s scored by Pakistani batsmen and the emergence of a young Pakistani fast bowler with a real future at Test level. Nevertheless, it felt like quite a slow day.

On three occasions however, our attention was galvanised by a team referring the umpire’s decision to the so-called fourth umpire.

Now, as explained earlier, we were feeling that the day was plodding along at a relatively unexciting pace — probably not helped by getting to bed at 2:30AM after watching a replay of the 2009 Grand Final on Foxtel.

When a team asks for a referral, cricket’s natural rhythm is upset. For the TV and radio audiences, there’s banter to listen to or replays to cast an eye over. For the poor old paying customer sitting in the grandstand, there’s nothing but the seemingly interminable wait ‘til the fourth umpire’s decision is relayed to the field umpire.

This is not a value-add for Test cricket.

The further point to make with regard to these three referrals was the the umpire’s decision was supported in each case. The common case for a referral system is that we should be using all available resources to make sure we get the right decision every time. Great! And there are how many wrong decisions made? Not many, clearly.

It seems to aussierulesblog that this system is a variation on a mulligan in golf. Why not let’s extend it to the players so that they make the right decision every time? A bowler doesn’t like the ball that gets clobbered for a towering six, so let him have another try after annulling the score from the offending ball. A batsman realises after driving at the ball outside off stump that it was swinging away and he should have allowed it to pass. Annul the catch taken at gully and replay the ball!!!

Of course this is nonsense!

As we have previously noted, there are substantial inequities built into the loosely proposed ‘system’ for video checking of goal umpiring decisions during the 2010 pre-season competition. The ‘dead time’ during the cricket referral shows what a disaster such dead time would be in an AFL contest and the resulting inequities inherent in avoiding dead time make the proposal a nonsense — all for a mere three wrong decisions throughout the whole of the 2009 season according to Adrian Anderson.

The idiots, it seems, are running the asylum.

Update: Watching a referral on Channel Nein’s cricket coverage is just as interminable, with endless speculation over microscopic details. Do we really need a system like this in Aussie rules? On every level, we think the answer is a resounding “No!!”