I’m writing this in the innings break of the first IPL game between bangalore and calcutta. I’ve just witnessed what might have been one of the finest innings in limited overs cricket. Absolutely mindblowing stuff from McCullum. Yet, if at all I’m feeling something, it’s irritation. Despite having watched such good cricket from this man, I feel quite incomplete. There’s something definitely missing.
Category: cricket
Improving umpiring
Just Outsource the front foot no ball
Takes a lot of pressure away from the umpire. Right now he has to keep looking down till the bowler bowls and then suddenly jerk his neck up and decide on lbws and caught behinds and bat pads. This jerk of the neck causes considerable strain, and can also present the umpire with a not-so-good angle and the probability of error goes up.
One reason us people in front of the TV get more LBWs right than the umpire is that we are not looking down at the popping crease waiting for no balls. Another thing is that there have been a number of cases where the front foot no ball hasn’t been given (notably in the barbados test in 1997, old trafford in 2001 when saqlain consistently overstepped, and last week when jaffer got out to lee) and outsourcing the no ball decision, either to the third umpire or to a computer would help immensely.
We can have special cameras installed in the ground which only provide a view of the popping crease at both ends. And while the ball is being delivered it’s the job of the third umpire to decide on front foot no balls. He anyways has? no work to do unless he is referred by the on field umpires.
That said and done, we need to develop technology for this soon enough. I suspect some variation of the cyclops used in tennis might come in useful here.
Anyways, I’m reminded of this quiz question in the Shaastra Main Quiz in 2002, where the question was about the inventor of cyclops sitting in his home and watching saqlain destroy England bowling no balls and wondering whether his invention would be useful.
Deodhar VS Salve
I?m surpised we are not having a ?Challenger Trophy? before selection of the Indian team for the World Cup. For, of late, the BCCI practice before any big tour or tournament has been to have this mindless tournament, named after yet another of those politician-administrators N K P Salve. A tournament where the ?India Seniors? team takes on the supposed second and third string teams, with the intention of providing the 33 best players in the country a chance to show their mettle.
Cricket Illustrated
This is in reference to the article “life is a game of cricket” I wrote a few days ago. Today we were discussing the answers to a certain examination and I was able to explain everything in cricketing terms… The paper consisted of 40 Multiple Choice Questions with +1 for every right answer and -1 for every wrong.