Technology has revolutionised refereeing – so why do we still argue over the umpire’s call?

It was a pity that the questionable refereeing decisions that gave Wales their first two tries last Saturday should have taken some of the gloss off their deserved victory. The referee Pascal Gauzere has since –  after a conversation with a superior officer – accepted that he got it wrong, though I wonder if, left to himself, he might have said: “may have done so”.

As to the first try, he was perhaps a bit too quick in saying “time on,” while Owen Farrell was still talking to his troops as he had been told to do. But if Gauzere was a bit quick, Farrell and England were not only slow but also slow-witted. First, there was no need for a long harangue. All Farrell needed to say was: “Ref’s had enough. Time for discipline, or we’ll be down to fourteen men.” Second, England seemed to assume that Dan Biggar would kick a goal – even though nobody had brought a kicking tee on and though Biggar has created a try against England before now with a diagonal kick to his wing. Only George Ford of the England team was alert to the danger, and Josh Adams outjumped him.

In the case of the second try, one’s initial reaction was that Louis Rees-Zammit (LRZ) had knocked the ball on, and it was no try. The video evidence and a close reading of the knock-on law suggested that the try was legitimate. Nevertheless, the expression on LRZ’s face when the try was given suggested amazement.

It is equally unfortunate that the controversy over these scores obscured the fact that Pascale Gauzere had an excellent game in another important respect. In particular, he referred to the breakdown admirably, insisting that the tackled player released the ball at once, that the tackler rolled away and that players entering the breakdown remained on their feet, not entering it from the side. All this made for the release of a quick clean ball, and when this was prevented, he penalised the offender.

England really had only themselves to blame for this defeat, and not only because they let the match slip by giving away three penalties in quick succession after they had drawn level at 24-24 – this was daft. England had been just as undisciplined against Scotland and lost. They seem to be very slow learners.

There has always been an argument about refereeing and umpiring. How could there not be? “We wuz robbed” is an old coach’s cry when a split-decision in the boxing ring has gone against his man. Making an immediate judgement is a matter not only of what is seen but often of what is supposed. Experience colours what is seen and one can never rule out bias, conscious or unconscious. One of my favourite lines in the account of the cricket match in A G MacDonnell’s England, Their England is  ““Out”, cried the venerable umpire before anyone had time to appeal”. Nobody who has played village cricket or, I’m sorry to say, school cricket would ever discount bias.

Technology, as used in professional sport, has undoubtedly improved decision-making. Obviously, this is the case in tennis on hard-courts and grass-courts, where the use of Hawkeye (or whatever the device is now called) generally settles the question of whether a ball is in or out. So long as you accept that the camera is accurate, there’s no room for argument. It records what has happened.

This isn’t the case in other sports in which technology is widely used. Most would probably agree that it has improved decision-making while still, in some cases, leaving doubt. That doubt survives in cricket, especially for LBW decisions where there is a predictive element. The technology shows you what has happened up to a certain point; then it predicts what would have happened next, where the ball would have gone if it hadn’t struck the batsmen’s pad. There’s a grey area here, which is why in doubtful decisions they stick with the judgement of the on-field umpire: “umpire’s call”. Yet technology has changed perception; its predictive element has persuaded umpires to uphold more LBW appeals because it has persuaded them that many more balls would go on to hit the stumps than was generally supposed. So, laws are more common than they used to be, and bowlers are rewarded where they used to have cause for grievance.

Nevertheless, in many sports, technology often cannot give an answer that is beyond dispute. Different camera angles give different versions of what has happened, and so it is left to the human judge/umpire/referee to make the final decision. When this is the case, the verdict is unlikely to satisfy everyone, partly due to our natural predisposition to think a decision in favour of our team or player right, one in favour of the other wrong. Abuse for referees or umpires seldom comes from the winning camp.

Thanks to Covid-19, the present Test series in India is being played with Indian umpires. Umpires from a neutral country are relatively recent in Test cricket, and allegations of bias used to be common and were quite often justified. However, there have been few complaints this series, almost the only one’s suggestions that the third umpire in front of his TV screen was sometimes deciding in favour of the home team, rather too quickly, instead of exhaustively checking every available camera angle.

There have been more complaints about the pitches, mostly from England’s supporters, though not from the captain, Joe Root, or Head Coach, Chris Silverwood. There is something to be said for the complainers. A Test Match scheduled for five days really shouldn’t be over in two. Though you might reasonably attribute the game’s brevity to the incompetence of England’s batsmen against good spin-bowling, one has to say that the Indian batting sometimes wasn’t much better.

I’m quite happy to see spinners being richly regarded; the odds are more often heavy against them. The ECB, for instance, has a deplorable attitude when it comes to deciding that a pitch is sub-standard. One that helps spin from the start is more likely to be condemned than one which helps seam. So, Somerset has been docked points in the County championship to prepare wickets on which the ball turns, while Essex has never, I think, even been reprimanded for pitches that favour their seam attack.

In theory, we all want to see a fair contest, nicely balanced between bat and ball. My ideal Test would see both sides making around 350 in the first innings and 250, as the pitch, deteriorates in the second, and it would last deep into the fifth day. You get such ideal games sometimes. But even the best will rarely be without argument and controversy.

These days this is often played out, and sometimes very nastily conducted, on social media. It is a big subject and an important one, too much to be addressed at the tail-end of a column.