UDRS leads to different interpretations for same situation
The much-debated Decision Review System came into sharp focus for the second time in six days at the World Cup as on both instances the on-field umpire stuck to his original decision though the point of impact of the ball on the pad was more than 2.5 metres from the stumps on both the ocassions.
- Press Trust of India
- Updated: March 04, 2011 12:36 PM IST
The much-debated Umpire Decision Review System came into sharp focus for the second time in six days at the World Cup as on both instances the on-field umpire stuck to his original decision though the point of impact of the ball on the pad was more than 2.5 metres from the stumps on both the ocassions.
At Bangalore, during the tied India-England Group B tie, on-field umpire Billy Bowden stuck to his decision of ruling England's Ian Bell not out for a leg before appeal against him by the Indian team when he was rapped on the pad by Yuvraj Singh.
India called for a review of the decision and technology showed that the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps but for the pad coming in the way. But the point of impact was more than 2.5m from the stumps and the batsman stayed on as Bowden stuck to his original call.
Even batsman Bell felt he was out and started walking back to the dressing room before he was asked to come back to the crease and continue his innings, and the incident created a major furore with India captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni going to the extent of criticising UDRS and the International Cricket Council (ICC) for introducing it in the mega-event.
During the Zimbabwe versus New Zealand Group A clash on Friday at the Motera stadium here, the former team's captain Elton Chigumbara was given out leg before to his rival counterpart Daniel Vettori when he had stepped well out to the crease to play the Kiwi left-arm spinner.
Umpire Marias Erasmus declared the batsman out, a review of the decision was called for by Zimbabwe and it was found through TV replays that though the ball would have gone on to hit the leg stump, the point of impact was clearly beyond 2.5m. Yet umpire Erasmus stuck to his original decision and the batsman had to leave the field. For the same sort of situation in two different matches, two different interpretations of the UDRS system seem to have emerged and that may fuel more debates.
On both occasions either the proof provided by technology or the instructions given in the playing conditions on how to interpret the situation appear to have been ignored by on-field umpires.