ICC wants player-driven appeal system

Entertainment Cricket and Other Sports
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System may be tested at Champions Trophy in Pakistan
Cricinfo staff
January 4, 2008

The ICC will push to trial a player-driven appeal system for contentious decisions at the Champions Trophy in Pakistan in September. A series of mistakes in the second Test between Australia and India have highlighted the need for extra help for officials, but Malcolm Speed, the ICC chief executive, said any experiment would not be based on Hawkeye or the Snickometer.

Under the system a player on either team could appeal up to three decisions in an innings and they would be referred to the television umpire. “I don’t think it will be trialled in Tests,” Speed told the ABC. “There’s a Champions Trophy coming up in Pakistan and that would be the time when all the best umpires and technology are there and we could get an idea of how it works.”

Speed said the increased use of the replays would be to eliminate the “obvious glaring error”, which has been a dominant feature of the opening two days in Sydney. Andrew Symonds and Ricky Ponting benefited from not-out decisions to catches behind in the first innings while Ponting was judged lbw to a ball he hit. Symonds also escaped a more thorough investigation of a critical stumping chance when Steve Bucknor did not call on the television umpire.

An appeal system was proposed by Speed and David Richardson, the ICC general manager of cricket, in 2006 and it passed through the organisation’s cricket committee and chief executives. “Then we took it to the chairmen of the ICC’s Full Member countries and the vote was 5-5,” Speed said. “Pakistan led the fight against and Australia was against it too. Seven must vote in favour for an issue to be passed.”

The referral was used in English county games last year - Speed said the players lost interest in it after a couple of matches - but he encouraged international testing. “Let’s see if it works, then have the debate,” he said. “I’m not concerned about the credibility of cricket. Generally there’s a sense the decisions even themselves out. The dilemma is the technology has got better and what do we do with it?” Any changes to the current system must be passed by the ICC’s country chairmen before they can be introduced.

Good news. Recent wrong decisions against India have got ICC thinking for once.
Pakistan is against it, for some strange reason.:smack:

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Re: ICC wants player-driven appeal system

This is a HUGE DEAL.

Something which has been long overdue.

The appeal system works so efficiently in professional tennis without causing embarrasment to the referee/linesmen.

A player can challenge line calls 3 times in a match and if the challenge was upheld by the replay....it is not counted towards the limit.

Similar thing in cricket would be great. I see no reason why any country should oppose this.

However, I am not sure if an LBW decision can be appealed as per the ICC's plans....becase Hawkeye (and similar technologies) are said to be not 100% accurate. If LBWs are not part of the appeal-system, then, I am afriad, it will serve little purpose....because more than 80% of wrong decisions today involve LBWs.

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Re: ICC wants player-driven appeal system

Is Australia going to tour Pakistan due to the security situation?

Andrew Symonds has already said of pulling out of the tour

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Re: ICC wants player-driven appeal system

Review of umpiring decisions
A leap of faith in technology
Jamie Alter in Colombo
July 22, 2008

Cricket is about to take a leap of faith in technology with the trial of a system that allows players to challenge the decision of the on-field umpires in the Test series between Sri Lanka and India. The umpire’s word will no longer be final.

The system has been tried, somewhat unsuccessfully, and in the relatively obscure environment of county cricket. But,after a shelved proposal to use it in the current England-South Africa series, millions of television viewers now await the sight of the first-ever referral to be made in an international contest. The jury is out on whether the move is designed to undermine the umpires or to assist them, but the acceptance of the system will depend by the decisions it produces.

At one level, the referral process is likely to eliminate obvious umpiring errors, such as the reprieve of Andrew Symonds in the Sydney Test last year that led to India threatening to call off their Australian tour, but there are also apprehensions about the exactitude of technology, particularly in the area of catches close to the ground and in the case of faint edges. In light of the Sydney controversy, it was inevitable, however, that the referral system would be trialled in international cricket. The sooner the better.

There will be 22 cameras at work at the SSC to help eliminate doubt from the decision-making process and for first time Hawk-Eye will be used for line decisions in judging lbws. Even though the predictive aspect of Hawk-Eye will not be used, the third umpire will still have visual evidence of the pitch of the ball and the point of impact. Technologies such as Snickometer and Hotspot have been kept out of the pale. Even the broadcast companies that use these aids to enhance television viewing are unable to vouch of their infallibility.

Following the tradition set by tennis, the first spectator sport of use technology in decision-making, each team will be allowed three unsuccessful referrals per innings, and men who will be making the decisions in the match have welcomed the move.

The trial has received positive responses from the captains of the two teams that will use it over the next few weeks. Mahela Jayawardene, Sri Lanka’s captain, gave it an enthusiastic endorsement. “I am all for it,” he said. “I think it’s a very good system, what we are trying to eradicate is the obvious mistakes that happen on the field. We [the captains and umpires] had a chat yesterday and I think the umpires are in favour of this as well.”

Anil Kumble, India’s captain, pointed out that umpires must understand that the technology is there to assist them. “I don’t think we’re trying to say that umpires are redundant,” he said. “They are an integral part of the system and it is very difficult for them in the heat of the moment; it is just assisting them. It is not a question of taking something away from them. It is a mode of assistance.”

But of course, there are flaws in the method. As Ian Chappell, who has opposes the referrals, points out, the system would bring justice for some but not for all. “If three referrals are deemed fruitless,” Chappell wrote, “under the recommendations of the proposal a team would then have no further opportunity to ask for assistance from the third umpire. Consequently, the biggest howler ever perpetrated could then enter the scorebook unhindered. This would be classic .”

And technology is neither foolproof nor hundred per cent conclusive. Two catches, or non-catches, in the in the recently-concluded Headingley Test highlighted the problem. Both AB de Villiers and Michael Vaughan claimed catches which were referred to the television umpire. In the first instance, the ball was conclusively grounded. In Vaughan’s case, two camera angles presented different pictures and batsman was given the benefit of the doubt. The next day, Nasser Hussain demonstrated with the help of the Sky television crew how the camera could lie.

But at the same time, there is acceptance that the game needs to adapt. Kumble’s assessment sums it up in a way. “Traditions are important but you need to keep changing. Everybody respects that now. Now millions of people watch the game on television and it is accepted. In tennis line decisions are accepted now, it is a part of every game. In cricket we have already accepted the third umpire ruling on run-outs and stumpings. It’s moving forward, and we shouldn’t just look at the history of cricket here.”

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Re: ICC wants player-driven appeal system

i work in a related field so i guess i should be happy, but i dont like it. it de-humanizes the sport and deprives us of the pleasure of witnessing the greatest whingers in cricket (no names need be taken) give it their best.