Even as the hawkeye showed the batter to be in line of the stumps, the on-field call of "not out" was upheld after the DRS intervention.
The Decision Review System (DRS), encompassing the hawkeye and ball-tracking technology, is an ever-evolving part of cricket. With time, the DRS has almost eradicated all the howlers we tended to see regularly on a cricket field. Players have the power to challenge the standing umpire’s decision and make sure the right call is upheld.
That is not to say the DRS has made the umpires dispensable to the on-field play, as the technology addresses and accepts its limitations as well. Especially when it comes to the projected path of a delivery for the LBW instances from the point of contact on the pads to the stumps.
The ‘umpire’s call’ has been a topic of longstanding debate. But it’s there because the technology states that on instances of an insignificant contact with the stumps – amounting to less than 50% of the ball on the projected path – a decisive call can’t be made by the DRS. Thus, to still arrive at a final decision, the umpires’ expertise in the case is considered paramount.
The projected path works on the length and breadth of the whole three stumps, including the space where the bails are positioned on top. But it goes blur, as admitted by the existing DRS process, when less than 50% of the cricket ball contacts with the pads in real-time and the stumps on the hawkeye.
Such occurrences are frequent. But there is another facet of the DRS that tends to skip discussions but is equally puzzling for the wider audiences when it comes into play. This projected path limitation is seen when a ball hits the pads of a batter with more than 3-metre distance to be covered till the stumps.
An incident with the 3-metre DRS rule being the main talking point came to light on Thursday (June 9) night in Delhi. South African batter Rassie van der Dussen was given not out after an LBW appeal by Indian pacer Harshal Patel in the first T20I even as the projected path showed the ball to be hitting the right-hander in line with the stumps.
An attempted yorker from Patel hit Dussen’s front pad on the full and the hawkeye on India’s DRS challenge confirmed that the ball was going on to hit the stumps as well. Yet, the on-field call by the umpire was upheld and Dussen was allowed to continue his innings. But why?
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The answer lies within the DRS’ evolving but still limited framework, as any contact that begins the projected path by more than a 3-metre distance to the stumps makes it difficult for the DRS to arrive at a clear, outright result.
Since Dussen had danced down the track to play his attempted slog to the on-side by more than 3 metres from the stumps, the point of contact exceeded the DRS limitation. And thus, while the hawkeye still showed the ball to be going on and hitting the stumps, it was still only a projected path and one that could not be trusted entirely.
Hence, once again, the ‘umpire’s call’ was preferred to arrive at a final decision.
