LONDON, (Reuters) – The International CrickPet Council (ICC) has defended the performance of the umpires and the Decision Review System in the first Ashes test between England and Australia.
The ICC surprised many yesterday by releasing their assessment of the officials as well as the DRS system following the Trent Bridge test after three umpiring errors threw the spotlight back onto the use of technology in the sport. While world cricket’s governing body said the “added intensity” of the occasion increased the pressure on the umpires, ICC Chief Executive David Richardson concluded they “did a good job under difficult conditions.” The analysis revealed that the umpires made a total of 72 decisions, which is “well above the average (49) for a DRS Test match”.
The umpires were assessed to have made seven mistakes, of which four were corrected by DRS, meaning the officials got 90.3 percent of decisions correct and this climbed to 95.8 percent as a result of the use of the review system.
The three decisions that were uncorrected included one against England batsman Jonathan Trott, who was wrongly given out following a review after the operator of the Hot Spot technology failed to trigger the system.
The other two wrong decisions involved England bowler Stuart Broad but these could not be corrected as Australia had no reviews available.
ICC chief executive David Richardson said: “The umpires did a good job under difficult conditions. This reflects the caliber of umpires (Aleem) Dar, (Kumar) Dharmasena and (Marais) Erasmus who have consistently performed at a high level.”
The test drew attention back to the DRS system and whether it was successful in its stated aim of eliminating obvious mistakes.
With each team allowed two unsuccessful challenges per innings, Australia made more liberal use of the system with nine review calls to England’s four. Only two of Australia’s reviews were successful, however, compared to three for England.
The Australians were twice unable to challenge poor decisions that had gone against them having used their quota. On one of those occasions Broad clearly edged the ball to slip, but was given not out by umpire Dar.
“While the ICC has complete faith in the ability of its umpires, our confidence in technology is also strengthened by the fact that there was an increase in the number of correct decisions in the Trent Bridge Test through the use of the DRS,” Richardson added.
“Technology was introduced with the objective of eradicating the obvious umpiring errors, and to get as many correct decisions as possible. If it can help increase the correct decisions by 5.5 percent, then it is a good outcome, but we must continue to strive to improve umpiring and the performance of the DRS.”
The use of DRS has divided opinion in the aftermath of the test. Australia wicketkeeper Brad Haddin, who was out under the review system from the final ball of the match to hand England victory, said umpires should use the reviews instead of the players.
His England counterpart Matt Prior said DRS had made him realise the difficulties umpires face.
“You have a strange relationship with umpires as a wicketkeeper because they are slightly reliant on you and I always joke with them that I’ll never appeal if it’s not out,” he said.
“You have to respect umpires for the job that they do, the scrutiny is tough. More often than not they do a fantastic job.”
