Umpire's Call: Heads I win, tails you lose

England captain Ben Stokes called for the elimination of Umpire’s Call, which is an essential part of the Decision Review System.

Rajkot: Unakku vandha raththam enaku vandha thakkali chutney ah?’

Famous Tamil comedian Vadivelu came up with this iconic line which means: “If you get hurt it's blood, but if I get hurt it's tomato chutney?”  

There are layers to the statement, but what it essentially conveys is disparity and the convenience of victimhood.

Ben Stokes played the victim on Sunday evening. It wasn’t a good look because England had only minutes prior been walloped by 434 runs by India in the third Test at the Niranjan Shah stadium in Rajkot.

Having been a staunch supporter of the UK-based HawkEye system for years now, it came as a surprise when Stokes called for the elimination of Umpire’s Call, which is an essential part of the Decision Review System.  

"My personal opinion is if the ball is hitting the stumps, it is hitting the stumps. They should take away the umpire's call if I'm being perfectly honest. I don't want to get too much into it because it sounds like we are moaning and saying that is why we lost the Test match,” said the mumbling English skipper.   

The fact that he felt the need to say he wasn’t going to use ‘Umpire’s Call’ as an excuse for losing is telling. That said, Zak Crawley’s dismissal in the second innings does border on the absurd.

After being given out by umpire Kumar Dharmasena to an in-swinger from Jasprit Bumrah, Crawley reviewed the decision. The screen showed that the ball was missing the top of the leg stump, but the marker on the left of the same screen said ‘Umpire’s Call’. 

Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum sought clarity from match referee Jeff Crowe after the Test. Turns out, there was an error with the produced image. 

Stokes and McCullum then approached the HawkEye team, only to be told that their calculations were right, meaning the ball was in fact hitting enough of the stumps for an ‘Umpire’s Call’ ruling, but the projection on the screen was wrong. 

These incongruities - an occasional anomaly - are precisely why India took as long as they did to accept the DRS.  

From Sachin Tendulkar to MS Dhoni later on, they were apprehensive of the vagaries of a system which attempts to reduce the gap between black and white in a sport which spends a lot of time in the grey

Instead of getting into the philosophy of why eliminate an umpire-led ambiguity which adds to the charm and clamour of cricket, it’s essential to look at how this system is flawed. Rather, in how many ways it is broken. 

The DRS system has undergone several renditions since its international introduction in 2009, and yet there is little clarity, especially on ‘Umpire’s Call’. 

The system breaks the delivery into three zones - pitching, impact and wicket. These predetermined, fixed zones are essential to leg before wicket decisions, but the very instance the delivery straddles the boundaries on these zones, it leads to confusion. 

The rule makers didn’t make it any easier by including that should at least 50 percent of the ball be hitting any part of the stump, the batter is out. 

Tendulkar had said: “…once you have gone upstairs to the third umpire then the on-field umpire’s decision should not come into the picture at all. It doesn’t matter whether the ball is hitting 10 per cent or 15 per cent or 70 per cent because when you get bowled, none of this matters. Even if the ball is just clipping the bail and the umpire has given not out, that decision should be overturned when they have referred to the third umpire. It (Umpire’s Call) is too confusing and is unfair to bowlers also.”

Maybe so, but the most pertinent problem with the system is that it goes against the fundamental tenet of cricket wherein the benefit of the doubt goes to the batter. While it isn’t fair to the bowlers a lot of times, by and large, it benefits them because, unlike batters, they have a chance to return to their bowling mark and have another shot at a dismissal. 

In April 2022, the head of the ICC's Cricket Committee Anil Kumble, attempted to explain why the Umpire's Call was still seen as a vital aspect of DRS.

"The principle underpinning DRS was to correct clear errors in the game whilst ensuring the role of the umpire as the decision-maker on the field of play was preserved, bearing in mind the element of prediction involved with the technology," Kumble said. "Umpire's Call allows that to happen, which is why it must remain.”

But, now that Stokes has raised a stink, it’s inevitable that the rest of his team, subsequently their fraternity, will join in asking for the Umpire’s Call to be shelved. All because they were on the receiving end. 

Had India done the same, it would’ve been scoffed at, as was the case before.