ICC needs to do away with ‘Umpire’s Call’ altogether, suggests Daryl Harper

No season of cricket can pass by without annual discussions surrounding the Decision Review System (DRS) and unsurprisingly, technology has once again been in the spotlight in recent weeks. While a section of fans and former cricketers have expressed their bewilderment over the absence of DRS in the Big Bash League, a vast majority have yet again expressed discontentment over the ‘umpire’s call’ in LBW decisions.

“I’ve had enough of umpire’s call. Let’s just ban umpire’s call. Get rid of the controversy and just go with it. Any contact with ball on stump will dislodge a bail. No 48 per cent, 49 per cent,” Harper was quoted as saying by Sydney Morning Herald.

LBW decisions elicited controversy in the second Test between India and Australia, but so did run-outs. A controversial third-umpire ruling saw Australian skipper Tim Paine being ruled ‘not out’ despite there being no evidence that his bat crossed the line, and the decision sent social media into meltdown, with people being split on whether Paine was out or not. Using the Paine decision as an example, Harper claimed how technology “isn’t up to scratch” despite years of development and advancement. 

“You could get 10 Indians in a room and 10 Australians in a room and they would see the Tim Paine run out in the first innings, and the 10 Indians would say ‘oh that’s out’ and the 10 Australians would say ‘oh that’s not out,’” Harper said. “If there’d been another picture in between the two we were looking at, I think we probably could have ruled him out. So the technology after 12 years of this, it still isn’t up to scratch.”