Sheer brilliance overshadowed utter incompetence – day one at Old Trafford

Ok. I’m going to take a deep breath before writing this. First of all, lets deal with the pitch …

It’s flat, and it got flatter as the first day progressed. Bumble, the one member of the Sky team with local knowledge, doesn’t think it will break up as the game progresses. Let’s hope he’s right.

In theory, it won’t be easy for either team to take 20 wickets on this. When it does occasionally offer a bit of seam movement, it’s so extravagant (and seemingly random) that it misses the bat by a country mile. England bowled several jaffas; all of which the Aussies missed by a foot.

England’s attack is better than Australia’s, so you’d expect our batsmen to fill their boots too. However, cricket is a random game sometimes so maybe our batsmen will actually be good enough to edge the good ones. Or maybe that’s just the neurotic pessimist in me talking. We’ll see.

Now let’s move onto the players …

Michael Clarke is a very good batsman. We’ve always known that. He was bound to come good at some stage, and let’s face it: if Australia want to win the Ashes, rather than a one-off test match, he’ll probably need to score another five centuries in this series, and another ten down under this winter. In other words, Clarke will need to keep carrying his team in every single innings remaining in this back-to-back Ashes series. This might be a bit of an exaggeration, but you get my point.

The next person we should talk about is Chris Rogers. He played well, but England bowled poorly at him; perhaps we were surprised that he looked so assured for once.

Then there’s Steve Smith. I don’t think anybody who didn’t rate him before today’s innings would have changed their minds. He played responsibly – for once – but he still looks like a test number 7 to me. Perhaps he’ll have most success when he plays like he did today: within his limitations.

And finally – and this is why I needed to take a deep breath – we move on to the umpires …

What on earth is left to say? The standard of umpiring in this series has been beyond diabolical. In a bizarre way, thank heavens for DRS. If some of these on-field decisions were left unchallenged, as they would have been five years ago, we’d be talking about the highest number of howlers ever witnessed within a short period of time.

The problem, of course, is that the 3^rd umpires in charge of DRS, are making an even bigger pig’s ear of things. AND BOTH TEAMS ARE SUFFERING.

One-eyed Aussies everywhere still seem to believe that the Canary Yellows have had more bad luck than England. This is because the Stuart Broad incident at Trent Bridge and today’s farcical Usman Khawaja dismissal have been the most high profile errors.

These people can’t have watched the whole series. Ashton Agar was clearly stumped in the first test, but given not out. Jonathan Trott was given out lbw in the second innings because hotspot was not available – because it was too busy proving that Root was incorrectly given out the ball beforehand.

The Aussies were unlucky with DRS at Lord’s – mainly because the 3^rd umpire decided to give edges out on audio alone – but it was England who suffered most today at Old Trafford. In terms of poor umpiring, and the quirks of DRS, England lost out 1-3.

First let’s deal with the Khwaja ‘edge’. After all, we’re not actually trying to work out which team has had the roughest deal in the series so far (I actually think it’s pretty even). The broader issue is that the standard of umpiring simply isn’t good enough.

Now I know that cricket blogs occasionally like to exaggerate for effect – either to get debate going, or simply to represent a different view. However, before I utter the following statement, I want to stress that it’s free of overemphasis and hyperbole. What I’m about to say is 100% true …

The failure of the 3^rd umpire to overrule Tony Hill, and give Khawaja not out, was the single worst decision I’ve seen in a professional cricket match. I’m not saying that worse decisions haven’t been made – the Rogers lbw at Lord’s was pretty close – but when Khawaja got his marching orders I was gobsmacked.

How anyone – even the most biased observers, let alone a professional umpire – can see that evidence, and conclude that the batsman was out, is simply beyond rational thought. The decision was an absolute disgrace (and I choose my words carefully).

The other umpiring errors, or quirks of DRS, in this match were more forgivable; they were understandable, even if they were wrong. Although this doesn’t help England one bit.

First of all, Steve Smith was palpably lbw to Swann. The umpire gave it not out because he thought it hit him outside the line. It didn’t. However, Smith survived England’s review because only 49.999% of the ball was cannoning into leg stump (according to Hawkeye) as the ball had turned just a little more than everyone had thought.

Let’s just get this straight. If 49.999% of the ball is hitting leg stump, said stump will be sent cartwheeling out of the ground. It’s hardly a marginal decision. Clipping the stumps it was not.

However, these are the quirks of DRS and we live with them. England were simply a bit unlucky. They were especially unlucky to lose their first challenge, but such is life.

The next head scratching decision involved Smith again. He clearly edged one to Prior – snicko later confirmed contact – but he was given not out because hotspot doesn’t work particularly well in hot weather (sad but true).

Because the 3^rd umpire didn’t see a hotspot, he thought there was enough doubt to uphold the on-field decision; obviously he is less well informed about the equipment at his disposal than the majority of cricket fans.

Normally you just accept circumstances like this because, as we keep saying, it’s all part and parcel of DRS. Some you win; some you lose. However, this was particularly hard to take because there had been no hotspot in the Khawaja dismissal. The lack of hotspot was obviously deemed irrelevant an hour beforehand – but now, suddenly, it was everything.

Even more galling was the fact that batsmen were given out on audio alone at Lord’s. So where is the consistency? It seems absolutely incredible that the ICC cannot create some uniformity for decisions like this.

Worse still, England lost their final review. In such circumstances, it just doesn’t seem fair. Neither challenge was wasteful – unlike the Aussies at Trent Bridge.

Of course, England’s lack of challenges was inevitably going to bite them in the posterior. And so it transpired. Smith, once again, was the lucky recipient of yet another on-field howler. Broad had him plum lbw with a ball that was hitting half way up middle stump. Lbws don’t get more ‘out’. However, in order to see such things, you need a fully functioning pair of eyes … something the umpires in this series obviously do not have.

How exactly are you supposed to take wickets on a pitch this flat, with umpires this bad, with no reviews in the tank? Australia should make 600. If they don’t, it will probably be because the wheel of outrageous umpiring misfortune has turned their way again. Umpiring really shouldn’t be this crucial to the outcome of cricket matches.

James Morgan