Does Ben Stokes have a point in questioning DRS technology?

Technology was brought into the game to remove umpire’s errors in judgement on the field. The idea was to get more decisions right than wrong.

Twice in succession at the end of a Test match in this series England captain Ben Stokes has questioned the legitimacy of the technology and the effectiveness of the Umpire’s Call. It so happened that he questioned them after suffering big defeats, in Visakhapatnam and Rajkot, surrendering a 1-0 lead to trail 1-2 after three matches.

After the second Test, which England lost by 106 runs, Stokes gave his personal opinion: “Technology in the game is there. Everyone has an understanding of the reasons it can never be 100 percent, which is why we have the Umpire’s Call. When it’s not 100 percent, as everyone says, I don’t think it’s unfair for someone to say ‘I think the technology has got it wrong on this occasion’. And that is my personal opinion.”

The England captain added: “But in a game full of ifs, buts and maybes, I am not going to say that’s the reason why we haven’t got the result we wanted. I’m just saying my personal opinion is that the technology has gone wrong on this occasion, and I think that’s fair to say. You can’t do much with things that have been and gone. A decision has been made, and you can’t overturn a decision that has been made. That is where I stand on that.”

This was about England opener Zak Crawley being given leg before wicket to Kuldeep Yadav on the fourth and what was the concluding day, playing off the backfoot. The appeal was first negated by umpire Marais Erasmus. The umpire thought it was missing the leg stump, but the DRS taken by India showed red on all three – Pitching, Impact and Wickets. Had it been the Umpire’s Call, Crawley, who was on song then with 73 in England’s chase of 399, would have survived.

Move the clock forward to Sunday, the fourth day of the Rajkot Test and Crawley’s dismissal by DRS again became an issue of contention. Playing Jasprit Bumrah on the front foot, he was rapped on the front pad and the ball seemed to go towards the leg stump. After a long thought, Kumar Dharmasena upheld India’s appeal. The DRS referral by England found the ball hitting the wickets, in line with the Umpire's Call.

Stokes and his head coach Brendon McCullum had a word with match referee Jeff Crowe of New Zealand at the end of the Test for clarity on the Umpire’s Call and DRS. Speaking later, without wanting to cite this for the team’s heaviest defeat in terms of runs (434) since World War II, Stokes said: “We just wanted some clarity around Zak’s DRS when the images came back. The ball was quite clearly missing the stump on the replay. So, when it gets given Umpire’s Call and the ball’s not hitting the stumps, we were a bit bemused. So, we just wanted some clarity from the Hawkeye guys.” The response didn’t dispel the bemusement. “It came back saying the numbers, or whatever it is, were saying that it was hitting the stumps but it was the projection that was wrong. I don’t know what that means. Something’s gone wrong, so, yeah. It’s not me blaming that on what’s happened here, like I didn’t last week. It’s just… what’s going on?”

Technology was brought into the game to remove the umpire’s errors in judgement on the field. The idea was to get more decisions right than wrong. But, as has been seen and proven enough, technology is not 100 percent accurate. And, this was precisely the reason why India was reluctant to accept DRS when it was introduced. “Sir, why are you making us the scapegoat,” then India captain Anil Kumble told the then BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah when he was informed that the DRS would be tested on the India tour of Sri Lanka in the late 2000s.

The idea of referring to the third umpire or taking DRS is to get a perfect decision. It is either out or not out, nothing in between. It looks silly to refer back to the on-field umpire, whose decision was originally doubted by the players and hence referred to. The ball is either pitching within the stumps (Pitching Zone) or outside, the point of impact is within the stumps (Impact Zone) or outside and the ball is going on to hit the stumps (Wicket Zone) or not hit the stumps.

The International Cricket Council has come up with a theory that the Umpire’s Call will be based on where the centre of the ball is at the time of pitching, at the time of impact and in the Wicket Zone. It looks strange to give someone out if the centre of the ball is 51% in these zones but not out if it is 51% outside these zones. It is either inside the zone or outside the zone.

The law says that ‘the wicket is put down if a bail is completely removed from the top of the stumps…..” May better sense prevail by discarding the Umpire’s Call. When the technology shows that the ball is clipping the top of the bails, thereby dislodging them, with all other things being equal, it has to be out. After all, that’s what is required for a wicket to fall, a bail to be dislodged from the groove of the stumps.

Will the ICC take serious note of Stokes’ concerns about technology? Only time can tell.