A FORMER top umpire isn't too happy about it. England and Wales Cricket Board chief executive Tim Lamb isn't enthusiastic either. But if the funds are available, a sports scientist at South Africa's Cape Town University believes he can develop a system using two cameras and computers to deliver foolproof lbw verdicts.
A report in The Sunday Times said Tim Noakes, head of sports research at Cape Town University, would need 100,000 pounds to develop the system. Two cameras are placed at right angles to each other -- one behind the batsman and the other beside him -- and using them, umpires could establish the path and height of a delivery. A computer would receive the information and assess whether the ball would have hit the stumps after striking the batsman's pads.
Noakes said it would be easier to judge the path of a ball which bounced before touching the pads; if the ball had not touched the ground before impacting on the pads, it would be a mite more difficult. However, Noakes did foresee a problem with the amount of time needed to produce a decision. He felt it could initially take a minute but that this could be shortened with the advancement of technology.
Dickie Bird was not enthusiastic. He felt lbw decisions were a matter of opinion and they would be disputed even if they were made with the use of electronic aids. He also felt it would contribute to umpires losing confidence in themselves and anyway, the umpires had been part of the game going right back into history.
Lamb's objections were that it would be too expensive -- a working party under Sir Bernard Lovell had investigated this possibility in the 1980s and found it would cost too much, he said. And additionally, said Lamb, the human element in umpiring had always been part of the game.
I touched on the use of the camera in an earlier piece. Theoretically, it should be possible to use technology to judge a great many things on the field of play. The use of the camera to verify run-outs and stumpings has helped to avoid depriving a batsman of a chance to stay on at the crease. As a logical extension, the no-ball could also be detected using electronics and so could a number of other things.
This development is, I think, good for the game. The umpire will never cease to be part of the game for the simple reason that he has a number of other functions apart from merely delivering verdicts. In fact, the added help of an electronic device would give the umpire that much more time to concentrate on controlling the game better. And that is one area which certainly needs more attention.