For the first time, a current captain has come out unequivocally against the player review and the economy of error it sets up in the Decision Review System. It is sad that Clarke’s comments come in the shadow of the greatest non-cricket cricket match in the history of independent India – the Wankhede Test against West Indies, November 14 – 18, 2013. Ordinarily, comments by Australia’s captain Michael Clarke, who is not only one of the established captains in Test Cricket, but is also one of the best batsmen in our current era, coming on the eve of a Test Match in India, which is the staunchest, most persistent critic of the most far reaching innovation in cricket since covered pitches, would invite plenty of attention.
But the Wankhede Test is not strictly a cricket match, it is first and foremost a farewell to a truly great player, a genuine prodigy who matured into a genius and has lived, at least according to the public record, the unblemished life of a cricketing yogi in the face of more distracting apsaras than all the yogis of yore put together had to contend with. This week is about Tendulkar. It is also, centrally, about the men and women who grew up watching him, and made their careers writing about and running the business Mark Mascarenhas built, not necessarily the sport Tendulkar fell in love with at age 11. It is a week of thanksgiving. The opponents are afterthoughts. Perhaps nothing else conveys the decline in West Indies cricket better.
And so Michael Clarke’s observations must wait. His point about the economy of error produced by the limited number of reviews must wait as well. What Clarke points out is obvious. Anybody who saw the design of DRS, or UDRS as it was called back then, would have deduced the problem immediately. I did. Way back in 2010. It has taken 3 years for a Test captain to make the following, obvious argument.
“The referral system – where captains have two unsuccessful referrals at their disposal – can distort the process,” Clarke wrote. “I don’t like the tactics involved, where umpires and the teams know how many referrals are left, and change their decisions accordingly. It should be consistent for all players.”
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“I believe that if it’s clearly shown that the batsman hit the ball and he was caught, then the technology should be used to ensure he is out,” he wrote. “If he’s hit in front of the wickets and the technology shows he is lbw, he should be out, regardless of how many referrals remain.
“As a captain, I’d just like the technology to be used to make more correct decisions, without all the complications of how many referrals remain or don’t remain. There shouldn’t be a numerical limit. If this means passing referrals back into the hands of the three umpires, on and off the field, then so be it. My final word on the matter – if technology, and the use of technology by the umpires, continues to be as inconsistent as it has been in this series [in England], I would rather it is not used at all.”
The ICC solution has been to increase the number reviews and thereby reiterate their support for the economy of error.
If the BCCI took its role as the governing body of the sport seriously, they would try their best to build their argument anew and enlist Clarke as an ally. Over 5 years, they have merely held their ground, offered nothing constructive, commissioned no alternatives in India. Given that they are the governing body of the sport, this is inexcusable. Given the resources they command, it is bordering on the criminal. Arguing about DRS may not bring the BCCI money. It may not change the bottom line by much. But it is central to the way the game is played. Far more central, I suggest than even the retirement of the single greatest Indian cricketer ever to have played the game.
I think he would agree. Sadly, the rest of us don’t.