Cricket and technology in Australia?
By Andrew Jayasinghe
OH! Oh now the snickometer has been removed from Channel 9's cricket coverage. The only crime this piece of equipment committed was to show that the great Australian hero Justin Langer should have been in the pavilion at 73 and may be the luckless but brilliant Pakistanis should have won that match in Tasmania. Does anybody doubt that I the concerned batsman was Inzamam and he was on the way to a record breaking partnership this Snikometer would have been hailed as the greatest technological marvel since the space rocket.
The poor misguided match referee Mr John Reid says that these technological marvels put the poor and innocent umpires between a rock and a hard place. Considering that the aforementioned gentlemen of this profession, with the ones produced in Australia, are primarily responsible for killing the game with their biased decisions and also taking in to account that they are being paid hefty amounts of money I ask him why not?
Why not indeed ! Why should not they be questioned when they make a cockeyed decision . As a matter of fact the gentlemen from Australia make these "mistakes" at such crucial times when the home nation is getting the advantage. The case of Michael Slater's run out last summer and Justin Langer's this time are prime examples.
The Australian Press this a marvellous act of closing ranks. Strangely Langer's bat had broken in mid air at this precise moment the ball passed the bat at nearly 135 Kph. It would have been more believable if it was said that was the sound of Langer breaking wind. The excuses that these blokes come up with, defy imagination.
It is no wonder that the vast majority of the public is not interested in cricket any more. This makes the press and others involved invent drama after drama to keep the attendances at the decent level. The Murali/Shoaib chucking dramas are prime examples of the press pack trying desperately to rekindle the interest in cricket.
As one humorist told me just the other day if God himself was bowling his heavenly seamers in Australia against Australia he would be labelled as a chucker by some in the press and most of the umpires.
The reality about the game is that it needs the technology to make sure umpires make correct decisions. Gone are the days of old English Umpires who stood in the games and showed unbiasedness and honesty. The umpires out there are paid professionals. It is time they started behaving as such. The technology is there to help them. They should use it as much as they possibly can instead of dragging the game back to the Neolithic era.
