The current excess of one-dayers is, quite often, justified on just the grounds that the money it brings in can be used for the development of the game around the world. However, administrators do not often spare a thought for the fact that existing facilities may need some improvement as well. They are happy to continue with things until there is a breakdown; the doctrine is that something should not be fixed until it is broke.
I raise this point to discuss an incident (there have been similar problems earlier, notably in the Singer tournament in Sri Lanka last year) in the first one-day international between the West Indies and India at Trinidad. A run-out was not given, solely because of a lack of footage at the right time. There were cameras aplently but at the time the footage was needed, it was not available. It was not that a camera was not covering the angle from which a replay was needed; it was simply that one inefficient TV channel could not provide the replay in time.
Stuart Williams was the batsman who benefited. He took a sharp single and did not ground his bat before Noel David fired in the ball and sent the bails flying. The third umpire was called into the picture but the TV cameras showed a replay from just one angle. David had thrown in from mid-on; Jadeja was backing up to prevent overthrows and the TV replay gave everyone a beautiful view of Jadeja's posterior. It would not have done justice to anyone to make a judgement from this footage and the benefit of doubt went to Williams as it should have.
However, some time later viewers got to see the incident from the other side and it was quite clear that Williams was out. His bat was hovering over the crease but it had not been grounded. But it was far too late for anything to be done; the footage was needed some time earlier. And this is happening in a day and age when technology has made so many other jobs easier; the use of replays was introduced to help avoid such mistakes but when it is not used properly, then the damage done is much greater. Greater because in the era when the camera was not around, one could not say with certainty that a debatable decision was wrong; in this case, everybody who was watching saw the replay from the second angle and knew that Williams was out.
All of this raises one question. With so much money coming in, why does the ICC not insist that the grounds which bid to stage international matches have certain facilities? Why should the question of whether a batsman is out or not depend on mediocre TV channels which cannot provide the necessary footage at the right time? Why cannot the ICC insist that there be official cameras which record the match from every possible angle, in order that what has been hailed as a great innovation -- this business of having a third umpire -- serves at least some purpose?
International matches are permitted by the ICC in every corner of the world these days and the guarantee money is the only consideration. The Padang in Singapore is far smaller than a regulation ground yet a tournament was played on it and a century scored during that tournament was recognised as the fastest in one-day cricket (until it was bettered at a venue in Kenya which was not exactly upto the mark either). Six-a-side cricket, which is a farce, has the blessing of the ICC as well and I do not need to spell out why this is so. Hong Kong is a wealthy place; that said, one needs to say nothing else. In this kind of climate, the question of replays being unavailable when needed is unlikely to bother cricket officialdom too much.
Would the ICC accept scorecards which are being maintained by a commercial company? Or would it insist on cards maintained by an official scorer? Why then is there a difference when it comes to TV footage? Images are the history books of the game; memories may fade, books and reports may be coloured by the people who write them, but the camera does not lie. There is no lack of finance for the ICC to put up cameras at major grounds, on the understanding that the cash will be paid back, and then entrust the camera operation to the association staging the match. Umpires should not have to depend on TV footage; it is laughable that the richer the sport gets, the more primitive the facilities become.
There was an incident in 1984 when a one-day game between India and Australia scheduled in Jamshedpur could not be staged because the cricketers' gear had not reached the ground; it had been sent by road due to the absence of any space in the plane which had brought the players to the city and the driver of the truck had lost his way! Mike Coward, who was then with the Sydney Morning Herald, wrote a superb piece about the incident; it was headlined "India 1984: no gear, therefore no game," or something to that effect. Thirteen years later, it seems we are not much further down the road to proper organisation.