Technology and common sense needed to calm fraying tempers

The Sydney Test has descended into a barrage of accusation and counter-accusation. One would not be surprised if lawyers were drafting more than the odd defamation action. This sorry statement of affairs is an indictment on all parties including the authorities (namely the ICC and the BCCI, although Cricket Australia are not without blame), numerous media outlets, the extraordinary passionate, vibrant but sometimes self- harming beast that is Indian cricket and the boorish behaviour of Australian players.

Firstly, the cricket. Teams that tour Australia lose if they adopt a siege mentality. India are in danger of adopting a complain first and ask questions later attitude, blaming a bevy of unfortunate umpiring decisions. It is notable how crestfallen India were when Symonds was given not out on 30. The situation is complicated by the tremendous pressure placed on the players and the weight of expectation stirred up. The popular movement to reinstate Ganguly has given the sense that anything is possible if demanded by the public. The players and, more to the point, the apparatchik administrators are going to be extremely reluctant to take responsibility for defeat if it means having their effigy burnt in Mumbai and Kolkata. India genuinely believe they should have won last time here, a myth perpetuated by most of the world's media. The sense that their destiny has been denied has made for an explosive outcome.

Secondly, the Australian team itself. The spotlight of the media is on Australia, whose reputation is universally of a great team but poor winners (and even poorer, if rare, losers). No one pays much attention to the atrocious track record of India, particularly vehement appealing on the last days of Test matches. There is a considerable reservoir of sympathy available for an opposition player to criticise Australia's sledging. Australia have clearly lost the battle to portray themselves as a fair team, and they have had enough of constant criticism. More should have been done sooner, and action should certainly be taken now to stop the resentment building up.

Personally, sledging should only be demonstrative of a player's wit and not touch on anything that might be personally offensive. There is no place for any form of racial vilification. There is now an interesting exercise in cultural education going on, with what looks like a cynical counter-charge made against Brad Hogg. Whereas the use of the word 'monkey' against Symonds is well known to have racist overtones, the word 'bastard' allegedly used by Hogg (and quite possibly used) does not often mean 'illegitimate male child' in common Australian usage. This whole mess may require a list of terms to be drawn up, or at least common consensus on what players can and cannot say on the field.

On the umpiring issue, the ICC is paying for a good idea badly executed. Bucknor has stood in 120 tests because he was voted onto the ICC international panel and it is meant to represent the Test playing nations. The problem is that no other umpires have emerged on the panel to replace him, and that Australia's Simon Taufel, rated the world's best umpire, cannot stand in Australian tests due to a perceived conflict of interest.

In other words, we get substandard umpiring to avoid bias. Having said that, the two umpires in Melbourne made almost no errors until the final day. Clearly, umpires have good days and bad days. The question is how to maximise one and minimise the damage on the other.

The best way to deal with the current situation is for the ICC to put more money into training and supporting umpires. This should allow for say, a panel of 16 umpires to umpire Tests with sufficient time for umpires to recover and de-stress. Umpires would also have yearly sight and hearing testing plus complete a practical umpiring simulation. These results would then be used to determine promotion or relegation of umpires. Within matches, the ICC could direct umpires to pay less attention to calling no-balls to allow more focus on the play. Third umpires would be empowered to recall batsmen if replays showed the bowling over-stepping. Teams could have three challenges an innings. The challenges would relate to whether catches were bump balls and whether there was an edge or not on catches and lbw appeals and whether the ball pitched outside leg stump on lbws. Challenges could be made by both the batting and fielding sides, although a fielding side would only get the benefit on catches. The technology used would include Hawkeye (plotting the pitch of the ball, adopted in tennis) and the HotSpot heat-detection system, as both show objective evidence of where the ball ended up. In one-day games, two challenges would be allowed per innings.