England's Summer Of Cricket against New Zealand and AUSTRALIA!

[Alex]

Kevin Pietersen @KP24
I am never afraid of getting out! If I nick it, I'll walk.. To suggest I cheat by covering my bat with silicon infuriates me..

Apart from Monday hey Kev

[Vermilion]

Cricketers have always been partial to the odd smoke here and there. Nothing new really.

Young Joe 'one direction hair cut' Root is even doing shapes with his mouth as he puffs away, a real pro.

[Vermilion]

KP calling the tape thing 'hurtful lies, if i nick it i'll walk, to say i'd put tape on my bat to hide a nick is calling me a cheat'.

I'm sure he'll stick to that too.

[Shaggy]

Apart from Monday hey Kev

He didn't nick it though

Cricketers have always been partial to the odd smoke here and there. Nothing new really.

Young Joe 'one direction hair cut' Root is even doing shapes with his mouth as he puffs away, a real pro.

[Sarb]

Would be pretty easy for the 3rd umpire to see if anything was amiss. Just check a couple of shots on hotspot where there are blatant edges to see if they show up. Doubt cricketers would be that stupid in all honesty

[Alex]

He didn't nick it though

He got a thin edge though. A few batsmen were saying the other day you can feel the thinnest of thin edges. So I think he knew

[Shaggy]

I'm not having it. You could see daylight between bat and ball! Nothing on hotspot, given out based on a sound. You can't give people out because of a noise. It could be anything. And based on his reaction - bearing in mind KP is one of the best in the game for accepting the decision and not kicking off - he certainly thought he'd missed it.

I don't think they can tell either. Maybe sometimes but not always. Bresnan thought he'd hit one the other day but in fact he had trousered it.

[Alex]

Where else would the noise have come from then? Clear click noise and a spike on sniko. Thats enough for me.

This is so refreshing after the mad house upstairs.

[Shaggy]

Where else would the noise have come from then? Clear click noise and a spike on sniko. Thats enough for me.

This is so refreshing after the mad house upstairs.

Bat brushing against pad, spikes dragging across the pitch, trouser pocket flapping. Could be owt. And snicko picks up on those random brushes and equally could be anything, which is why it's not currently a part of the DRS process.

Yes it is

[Hollowman]

He wasn't given out because of the sound. He was given out on the field, and the third umpire doesn't start from a clean slate. He has to be certain to overturn the field call. I think it was reasonable that the noise meant he couldn't do that. Bat was nowhere near pad.

[Shaggy]

Yes fair point - I haven't seen any of it other than what I saw at the ground.

Though I still think that is one of the parts of the DRS process that they've yet to get right. They either trust the technology or they don't - no mark on Hotspot, no deviation and even apparent daylight between bat and ball surely ought to mean they overturn a 'not out' decision like that. Everything about umpire's call is ****, and I'm not sold on the whole "DRS is there to overturn the howler" notion either. It should be there solely to ensure more correct decisions - whether a blatant howler or an understandable/marginal wrong call. The KP decision on Monday was upheld as the umpire had already given it out. Had he plumped for not out the third umpire would presumably have left it at not out due to there being no evidence that he hit the ball. A noise isn't evidence. DRS should be there for making the calls that are too close for the umpire to call with any confidence. I don't think it should be for the players to refer - use of referrals isn't a cricket skill. Let the umpires get on with it.

There was another instance on Monday of something I'd mentioned before - again pertaining to umpire's call. When Trott was given not out yet Harris had his leg stump about to go cartwheeling out of the ground until the ball smashed into Trott's pad. Flush on leg stump and it's another quaint 'umpire's call' and Trott inexplicably survives. Surely that element of it has to go.

[Neil Young]

Overturning a decision like the one Pietersen got is a bit anomalous. Basically it requires proving a negative.

If the technology is deemed less than 100% reliable then surely there is always doubt and the decision should stand unless the bat is about a mile away from the ball.

The radio commentators (I assume the Sky chimps have made the same point) say the third umpire has a crappy little screen. That doesn't help.

Having said all that, I think umpire's call is right. The technology isn't 100% right on predicting the path of the ball so there has to be an element of chance. As a result if it's within a certain margin of error then umpire's call has to stand. In other words it's down to the human eye. That seems quite fair enough to me.

In short, it's a fallacy to say Harris was going to bowl Trott. It wasn't definite (i.e. it was within the margin of error of the technology), otherwise it would have been overturned.

[Shaggy]

It was hitting the stump! Naked eye it was out, and the technology they have entrusted to predict the ball's line and trajectory told it was banging into leg stump. Must've been in the region of 51-49 since the margin is half a ball. At the very least they need to reduce the margin for error. That was an umpiring howler and they couldn't even overturn it. It wasn't 'clipping' by any definition other than the letter of the lamentable law. It's hitting the stumps, it's got to be out.

[Neil Young]

How do you know it was hitting the stump?

I guess the margin of error could be varied according to how far away the ball is when it hits the pad. But you're simply using one definition of clipping instead of another.

You f*cking know all this as well. I haven't said anything you don't know or haven't thought of.

[Neil Young]

Alec Stewart suggested that when DRS shows the ball is "clipping" the stump then even though the not out decision shouldn't be overturned, the bowling side shouldn't be penalised by losing an appeal (if you see what I mean). Obviously there are similar circumstances when the batting side doesn't get the out decision overturned but could also not be punished by losing their appeal.

So the margin for error/umpire's call doesn't doubly penalise the appealing side.

It probably overcomplicates things further but it's an interesting suggestion. I don't think it would do what he thinks though, i.e. reduce some of the frustrations around DRS.