You probably saw the story yesterday about the trialling of umpire’s microphones in international cricket.
Discussions between the on-field and television umpires will be aired during Australia’s upcoming one-day series against South Africa. The International Cricket Council (ICC) is conducting the trial during the five-match series, with a view to using it at select matches in the World Cup.The first match is at Perth on Friday.
In what may be a first in international cricket, the aim is to increase openness and transparency.
The ICC say:
This initiative is part of ICC’s efforts to make umpiring more understandable to viewers and spectators”.
And who could argue against that? We’ve talked a lot here recently about cricket should or shouldn’t learn from rugby union, a sport which already has miked-up referees. This is one feature of the egg-chasing sport well worth copying.
Think of all the times when the ground spectators have been left completely in the dark, and TV viewers rely only on the commentators’ guesses.
This is often when arcane playing conditions dictate what happens next. I’m thinking of Hairgate in 2006, or the climax of last year’s Oval test, when the umpires were forced to suspend play for bad light just as the match was reaching its denouement, and with England’s batsmen in no mood to come off. In the ground, no paying punter had a Scooby what was going on.
In this trial, the microphones will only be audible at certain moments. According to the ICC:
The umpire communications can be aired during umpire referrals, consultations and DRS (Decision Review System) player reviews.”
This has a significant implication for the spectator experience of a DRS decision. At present we see what the third umpire sees, but we don’t always know how he’ll interpret the evidence. Remember Brad Haddin’s second innings dismissal at Trent Bridge last year? And recall holding your breath to see if that tiny white mark would be adjudged an edge?
If the umpires’ discussions are made audible, though, we’ll find out what’s going to happen earlier, and in piecemeal fashion. The drama – a supposed asset of DRS – will be dissipated. But at the same time it will be interesting to hear their rationale.
We’ll only hear those key events, and of course, because the umpires know we can hear them, they’ll probably moderate what they say.
If the trial turns into a permanent arrangement – and once these things begin, it’s impossible to get them back into the box – we may or may not get a real insight into the mindset and processes of umpiring.
What do they say when discussing the state of the light? Often they appear to ponder this at some length and it’s hard to imagine the nature of their exchange. It’s either dark or it’s not. The meters give whatever readin g they do.
Occasionally, test umpires give the impression they don’t really know what to make of a situation or what to do. Is this fair? We may soon find out.
But wouldn’t it have been nice if umpires had been miked up in the days of David Shepherd and Dickie Bird. Such first-hand evidence may have proved what we’ve long suspected: only 2% of Dickie’s decisions were wrong, but 95% of his anecdotes were made up.
Turning to other matters, and I’m grateful to Jeremy on the comments board for flagging up a point about the schedule for the 2015 women’s Ashes
Why is the 2015 Women’s Ashes series – during which there is only one test match – being entirely played in the south- not one match even in the midlands? Pattern for the future of the game maybe – this is appalling.
Arron Wright, astute as always, divines a deeper trend.
So you have a women’s Ashes going no further north than Worcester, a men’s Ashes going no further north than Nottingham (this applies to the entire tour including county games, except for two ODIs in September), a main sponsor that had no presence in northern England until the last ten years, a series of other sponsors based in London’s financial district, and a chairman and MD with City/stockbroker backgrounds.
Gosh, anyone see a pattern at all?
So is this all just a coincidence? Or is the north of England systematically being disenfranchised? Why does London – every year – receive three of the seven tests?
Meanwhile, TFT reader Nick Saint, in his new blog compiles a league table of TV’s top sporting dramatisations. Guess which famously unbiased 1980s account of a cricketing epic is number one?
Maxie Allen
I am not even going to challenge London’s right to host three Tests every year, two of them against the more important touring side. It is the way it is; that’s not my particular concern. More importantly, it hasn’t changed as a result of the bidding process, whereas plenty of things have changed outside London, as I hope to show.
Anyway, here are some of those stats I didn’t have time to put together yesterday. All observations are based on the period 2000-2015, i.e. including next year’s schedule.
– There were at least two Tests north of Nottingham every year from 2000-2009, representing 21 out of 70 Tests (30%). Of those, at least one match every year was played against the major touring side in the second half of the summer, with the exception of 2007, when all three northern grounds hosted the West Indians in May/June.
– In 2010 there were also two Tests, but only one involved England (the other was Pakistan v Australia). It was against the lesser visitor, i.e. Bangladesh.
– From 2011-2015, three out of five years will see fewer than two Tests north of Nottingham. In 2011 there were none (out of seven Tests), in 2012 one, and next year there will be one. As was made clear to Mike Selvey, 2013 was a major outlier, with three Tests held at northern grounds. Overall during this period, seven out of 34 Tests will have been played north of Nottingham (20.6%). This is a fall of almost ten percentage points on the previous ten-year period, or a proportional decline of 31.33%.
– Of those seven Tests, four were against the major opponent (half of those in 2013), but in both 2011 and 2015, the major touring side did not venture north of Nottingham. So that regrettable oversight has already occurred twice in five years, as against once in the previous ten.
– Headingley hosted the major opponent seven times in ten years between 2000 and 2009. It has hosted them once in the last six years (2012). By 2019, Headingley will have seen one Ashes Test in eighteen years (and that match was over in two and a half days). That, for me, is the single most disgraceful consequence of the bidding process. Astonishingly, New Zealand will visit exactly the same grounds (Lord’s and Headingley) in six months time as they did just a year and a half ago.
– Old Trafford hosted the major opponent four times in ten years between 2000 and 2009. Like Headingley, it has hosted them just once since 2010 (in 2013).
– Durham, in spite of being the first new ground to be added to the roster in 2003, had to wait ten years before hosting a major opponent. By contrast, Cardiff got an Ashes Test first time, and has been given a second one next year in spite of well-documented issues concerning its lack of readiness to host the West Indies in 2012. Southampton’s second Test was against India; Durham had to wait until its fifth before hosting Australia. First came Zimbabwe (2003), then Bangladesh (2005), then West Indies in June 2007 and finally – absurdly – West Indies in the first week of May 2009.
– Cardiff has therefore hosted as many Ashes Tests as Old Trafford and Headingley this century, and one more than Durham.
– In total, Durham has hosted five Tests, which is as many as Cardiff and Southampton have hosted between them. Yet the southern grounds have already seen a major opponent in the latter part of the summer three times, and Durham just the once.
– Trent Bridge and Edgbaston, which traditionally were regarded as equal to Old Trafford and Headingley, have hosted four Ashes Tests *each* this century, i.e. as many as the two traditional northern grounds have hosted *between them*.
– Trent Bridge hosted the main opponent five times in ten years between 2000 and 2009. It has done so in five out of six years since 2010.
– Edgbaston hosted the main opponent seven times in ten years between 2000 and 2009. It has done so three times in six years since 2010, i.e. more times than Headingley and Old Trafford put together, in spite of missing two years completely due to refurbishment. Old Trafford also missed two years, of course, but their treatment seems quite different.
I hope there’s plenty there to get your collective teeth into.
What, exactly, is your point?
And Test cricket shouldn’t be played so much west of Manchester? Is it the toll at the bridge?
Otherwise, absolutely agree.
Lords has to be regarded as a bit of an anomaly. The Lords test transcends cricket. It is part of the English summer season. It is more an event in line with Wimbledon, Royal Ascot etc etc. Having two test series per summer ensures that there are two Lords test matches. The touring team also request it. They all want to play at Lords. Add in the Oval test match and you have 3 London test matches. I have no problem with that. London is England’s biggest city, and has a huge population.
However, if you are going to have 3 London test matches out of say 7or 8 test matches per summer, surely you can’t also have another one at the Rose bowl. 4 out out of 7 or 8 is a huge southern bias.
Are you suggesting that we have to bow down to London then?? There’s a bigger population outside London that is continually denied watching top cricket, and football actually. I’m thoroughly sick of the accepted London bias being perpetuated as if it’s written in stone somewhere – it’s not and London should get over t!!!!!!!!!!
I’m not suggesting we should ‘bow’ down to London or anyone else for that matter. But if you have 2 test series per summer Lords will get 2 test matches. A major part of that is foreign sides want to play at Lords. If you throw in an Oval Test match, that makes 3 in London for a population, if you include the surrounding area of well over 10 million people. I see no problem with that.
It still leaves 4-5 test matches to be allocated to the midlands the West Country/Wales, and the north of England. As I say, those test matches should not be going to grounds in the South like the Rose bowl.
England football internationals – London
England Rugby Union internationals – London
Let’s have England cricket internationals in London then but don’t call the team England – call it London and the rest of the country won’t have to bother watching or contributing to the upkeep of the teams!!
let London have the lot and pay for it
Really sick of this debate
actually you are beginning to sound like the ECB Mark, let’s have London taking so many games as given and the rest of the country can have the crrumbs ……that’s the way it is!!! No wonder I’ve lost interest in cricket if that’s the prevailing attitude as in so many walks of life in this country!!!
On Test venues – agreed with Arron.
On umpires, no problem with the microphones although I’d agree with whoever said on Switch Hit (David Hopps?) that the stump mics should be on too as it seems iniquitous that we could hear the umpires but not the players.
Also on umpiring – the standard in the UAE has been excellent with plenty of LBWs and bat-pads referred but very few overturned. The matches have also been played in a great spirit which might be a cause or an effect of the good umpiring and also reflects well on the three captains.The contrast with watching some of England’s charmless recent performances has been stark.
There are numerous articles based on an Eoin Morgan interview in the press and the difference between what George Dobell writes on Cricinfo (largely supported by Scyld Berry in the DT) and the versions in the Guardian and Daily Mail is staggering (although Paul Newman’s stat in the latter that Rohit Sharma’s innings alone would have beaten England in 7 of the last 10 ODIs is rather good).
Just a line on the microphones being on for the umpires. Just as well they weren’t on when dear old Rudi Koertzen was third umpire.
Poor old Rudi was not very with it with the technology. So we would have heard something like this if the microphones had been on.
“Rudi was there a nose?”
Rudi……. “I can’t hear anything, no noise. Not out.”
” Rudi are you sure the volume Is turned up?”
Rudi……” I don’t know, where is the volume control? Still can’t hear anything.”
Or the famous one in the Caribbean where the cleaner had gone into the third umpires room and pressed the zoom on the camera to max by mistake and so poor old Rudi couldn’t get a picture on the screen.
“Rudi can you see the picture ?”
Rudi…..”I can’t see anything, it’s all blurred.”
“Rudi can you see it now?”
Rudi….”No it’s still blurred, I can’t see anything.”
Phil Tufnell:
“How many balls left, umps?”
Peter McConnell:
“Count ’em yerself, yer pommie bastard”.
Nice one Maxie.
Here’s my view of how it is all likely to unfold:
wp.me/p4Fb9D-Rv
Regarding the umpiring discussions being aired as a trial, I read somewhere that ICC is planning to use it for ‘select matches’ at the world cup. I wonder what is the criteria to select those matches.
A World Cup has to be a level playing field, already squeezed in unstructured format where 8-9 teams are playing (NOT fighting) for 8 knock-out positions. I wrote it here at: http://www.theworldcupcricket.com/blog/umpire-discussions-air-select-matches-world-cup-2015
Call me an old curmudgeon, xenophobic (bloody hell, did I actually spell that?) You can produce all the stats you like, but, North of Nottingham, folk will only spend money on what they WANT to watch! In London they’ll spend money on where they want to be seen! I may be wrong, but my endless travels tell me I’m not!! x
Pfff! Some might spend money on where they want to seen, but not all of us. Insane ticket prices.
I am afraid I don’t agree with Morgan in the slightest. The T20 cup is not there to provide T20 cricketers for the England team, it is there to provide enjoyable and entertaining cricket for English fans to watch, both live and televised, how, where, and when they want to watch it, and in return, the revenues from ticket sales should provide the counties with the ability to become self-sufficient and less reliant on ECB hand-me-downs.
I’ve just watched the first A v SA ODI with the new microphone system and it seemed to work fine. The only point I learnt is that the umpires (or Billy Bowden anyway) call Snicko “the ears”.
The match had an incident I don’t think I’ve ever seen before in 40 years of watching cricket. As he played a shot Dale Steyn’s boot came off – it didn’t hit the stumps but presumably if it had he would’ve been out ‘hit wicket’?
I’m not sure the umpire thing is much more than a gimmick. Frankly I don’t really care if I hear the umpires deliberating a decision or not. What is much more important is they get it right.
I think some umpires may become reluctant to talk if they are being recorded. They may not want the public to hear their thought process. Especially as some commentators can be pretty impatient.
I doubt it will make much difference to the game. Maxie talks about keeping the crowd informed, but that is usually about things like bad light and I am not sue this will help much. I do slightly worry that if the crowd can hear an umpire leaning in a particular way for a decision that the crowd don’t like,they might start to boo before the decision is given.
I wish the ICC would do more to speed up play rather that these gimmicks. Perhaps a bit of technology that fires an eclectic shock at the fielding captain if he doesn’t get the over rate up. And since when was it decided players can have a drinks break after every over?
I agree with you Mark. Maxie’s point about being informed is fair enough but I did think that maybe umpiring deliberations should be done in private. It would be less inhibiting for them. They do a difficult job as it is. Not condoning the awful errors, mind you.
Also share your thoughts on the matter of the London tests. Lords should host two for reasons given and the Oval is a very iconic venue. No denying that London is a great catchment area and we have better weather!
As for the time wasting! Grrrrr! Something radical needs to be done about that. Always a sore point with me.
Bowden was obviously being careful in what he said from the action I saw. The real test of the system will come when there’s a very controversial decision – for example when Hotspot and Snicko seem to disagree. If the system helps understand why an umpire goes with one rather than the other it has to be a good thing.
The two decisions I saw were both clearcut involving catches to the keeper. McLaren was given not out but Hotspot showed a clear mark on the glove. Shortly afterwards Philander was given not out but Snicko detected a faint outside edge.
Couple of other points from the game – i) Wade had a good match replacing Haddin and ii) Clarke failed again with the bat then had to leave the field injured (hamstring – George Bailey took over as captain).
TV and radio commentators have been able to hear the conversations between onfield and TV umpires for quite a while.
That’s true but they are more circumspect than the mob on the terraces listening in!
I have no fondness for Lords, but it is important to visiting teams and England players, so I think we’re stuck with it.
However, as Arron highlights, the bidding system has consistently failed to produce a schedule that benefits the game. This issue of good distribution is all the more important when live cricket is locked away on Sky.
Cook interviews appeared on both Guardian and Cricinfo.
“In the last three or so years 250 being par has gone up, but I don’t think it has gone up as much as people have made out. We haven’t won our last few series so we do have to improve the way we play. I don’t think it requires a radical change of method, though.”
The rest isn’t much better – a petulant dig at Vaughan, an attempt to portray the 2013 Champions Trophy as some heroic ODI masterclass (winning three matches – one rain-affected – out of five at home in June), lame excuses for failure (other sides don’t get injuries or play and win ODIs after Test series?) and so on. That’s if one can believe the Guardian report – the account of Eoin Morgan’s interview yesterday was risibly inaccurate so perhaps Cook really said “I’m going to blast it like Rohit”…..
In other news, Nick Compton is leaving Somerset so he can play nearer his London home. Didn’t somebody else do something similar not long ago and it supposedly proved that he was an industrial strength scumbag?
The Telegraph is a little less convinced by Cook’s spin:
“For Cook, it is five out of five losses and this winter will end with him losing his job in one-day cricket if England have another stinker of a World Cup…”
“The dressing rooms in a good place”….marvellous, the World Cup’s ours then?
“We’ve had his side of the story now, and we can all move on!”….Marvellous, the World Cups ours then?
“Of course you can get the odd blip, especially in Indian conditions, but we don’t see the need to change our strategy”….Marvellous, the World Cups ours then?
How can it possibly fail??????
I’ve had a few beers now, but, if he’s not the worst Captain foisted on English Cricket I don’t know who is? I leave it to the stats gurus, but, bloody hell, you may struggle!!
You are upsetting me! Too close to the bone.
I know…but I did say I’d had a few beers, and then again, I don’t believe I’m wrong???
You could well be right. Poor dear Cooky.
Sorry Jenny, but his role model, Stuart Lancaster lost again!
Licking wounds… :-)
Sorry! That should have been a sad face! :(
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