Sick of poor decisions

“Where are you?” queried the emails.
“What’s going on?”
“What must we do?”

Such is the awesome and addictive power of 6000 miles…that when I was struck down – pretty heavily struck down, too – by a particularly nasty illness this last week, desperation set in for some readers.

But it’s ok. I’m back. And I’ve got lots that I want to write about. Although I haven’t been able to get near a computer to actually document my thoughts, I’ve been having plenty of them. Some of the more interesting ones were sadly only accessible while my temperature was in the low 40’s.
Thus, I can only remember odd bits of them. Bits that involve parrots.
I told you they were odd.

While I was away on my journey to Virusville,  South Africa beat England in a unusually interesting Test match in Birmingham. Through glazed eyes (via the disappointingly weak interweb surfing capabilities of my aging cellphone), I read and agreed with Brian Micklethwait’s take on Michael Vaughan’s resignation as England captain following that game.

How thin are the threads that these things hang by!  In England’s second innings the day before yesterday, Vaughan was looking good, until he got himself out with a silly shot.  And yesterday, South Africa’s captain Smith would have been given out, caught off the glove off Panesar, if “Hotspot” the latest analytical gizmo – it shows where balls strike by photoing heat rather than light), had been helping the umpires instead of only helping the commentators to make idiots of the umpires.  Smith was then on about 70.  He went on to make 150 not out and win the game for his team.  England might well have won if that decision gone their way, and if England had won, Vaughan would not now be stepping down.  He might have made some runs in the final test against South Africa, and gone on to lead England in the Ashes next summer. As it is…

Yet another dodgy decision with massive implications. And yes, I know that referees and umpires are only human and these things happen, but with professional sport being what it is these days, isn’t it time that the technology which is available is applied so that careers aren’t ended and millions of pounds aren’t lost simply because of the actions of of an inept official?

So now we have a South African with a South African name captaining the England cricket team and a South African with an English name captaining the South African cricket team. And, if the papers are to be believed, they hate each other. Ooh – the drama.


A couple of tossers with a coin

I like this photo from the BBC News website. Pietersen looks like he’s missing a pint pot and is looking in completely the wrong direction. Smith looks like he’s missing a brain and is looking directly at the money.
Which sums them both up nicely, I think.

EDIT: more (slightly surprising) opinion and a nice pic of Newlands here.

10 thoughts on “Sick of poor decisions

  1. Fancy being ill… that’s just plain rude! 😛 I was about to make some pithy comment about being ill in summer, and then I remembered it’s winter there… so you’re allowed.

    Hope you didn’t share your germs with Mrs 6K and the no-doubt beautiful baby!!

    Helga Hansen’s last blog post was: HNT # 19 (Note: 6000 miles… is not responsible for the content of external internet sites)

  2. Helga Hansen » It may be winter, but the weather has been like summer over there. I attempted to share my germs, but no-one wanted them.

  3. Thanks for the punt 6000! If you browse back a couple of articles (literally) you’ll note that I mentioned that technology thing. And pretty much said what you did: that in the professional era it’s time technology is used. It was supposed to have been used in this series, but following (mainly English) objections the idea was scrapped and the Indians and Sri Lankans got to be the guinea pigs. Oh well, such is life. Sometimes the decisions you make come back and bite you on the butt…

  4. Mrs 6k » More than you share your chocolate… ;-)’

    Gary » Not just cricket: goal-line technology is waaaay overdue. As for Vaughan – I’m happy to see the back of him, if not the way it came about.

    Goblin » Thanks. Busy, are we?

  5. Mrs 6K, I’m so glad to hear that you didn’t fall foul of your husband’s lurgies! And I think he needs to buy you some chocolate to make up for the germs he *did* give you! 😛

  6. Yahoo. I should be getting more choc. Thanks Helga.
    Goblin – i just love that pic of the cat.

  7. 6000

    Glad you’re better, and thanks for the link and quote.

    Surely the point about this umpiring error is that it was not actually inept. This was a very hard thing to spot. The England players didn’t even realise what a good shout it was, until they later saw Hotspot’s verdict, or until the word came out from the pavilion from people who had.

    Flintoff had a very, very, VERY good shout for LBW against Kallis in the first innings, but justice was soon done because Flintoff got so angry he bowled Kallis about two balls later.

    Just to show I’m not biased, there was another dodgy LBW decision when AB de Villiers (I think it was) got given out to one that was very probably going over and very possibly also hitting outside the off stump. Can’t remember when that was exactly, but I can definitely remember Hawkeye showing it going over.

    Before all this technology existed, then relying on the umpires doing their honest best with only their eyes and ears made sense. But now, when the commentators can work out in seconds what the verdict should have been, better than the umpiresare now doing, the situation is ridiculous. The umpires already use technology for run outs and stumpings, and very well it works (although far less well for disputed catches – technology doesn’t solve every problem). The rule should be that the umpires have all the technology that the commentators have.

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