First, a spoiler alert for anyone following The London Spy on television and who has yet to see episode four: do not read to the end. So. Buried somewhere deep in the vaults of the England and Wales Cricket Board, if they have such things, there may still be a piece of equipment that is the forerunner of what we now know as the decision review system.
Getting on for four decades ago, the Test and County Cricket Board, as it was then known, asked Sir Bernard Lovell – the esteemed radio astronomer, first head boffin of Jodrell Bank and a president of Lancashire – if he would be able to develop a device that would help umpires when it came to arbitrating on catches to the wicketkeeper.
Lovell had already designed the prototype cricket light meter, the dial of which, resembling the speedometer on an old car, some may remember placed in front of the upper tier of the stand opposite the Old Trafford Pavilion, and, as now requested, he produced something that did indeed do the specified job, accurately, detecting even the faintest kiss of a cricket ball on the edge of the bat. The only problem was that it needed to be attached to the bat, the difficulties of which are readily obvious, and the project was left to gather dust, never to see the light of day again.
Fast forward then to Adelaide a few days ago, in the era now of ball tracking, super slow motion, Hot Spot, Snicko, multiple television angles, and third umpires. The Australian team were in trouble against New Zealand on the second day of the inaugural day/night Test match, struggling at 118 for eight in reply to the Black Caps’ 202, when the No10 Nathan Lyon attempted to sweep the left-arm spin of Mitchell Santner and appeared to get a thin top edge which then ricocheted from his shoulder to slip, whence it was caught.
The appeal was turned down by the umpire Sundaram Ravi, whereupon the Kiwis sought a review and the game came to a grinding halt, precipitating what became known as the Night of the Llong Knife for the Land of the Llong White Cloud. For the best part of six minutes the TV umpire, Nigel Llong, deliberated, mused, sought replays, asked for frames to be wound back, asked and asked again. The crowd became understandably restless.
From two different angles, Hot Spot showed a clear mark on the top edge of the bat but Llong (“there is a mark, Ravi”) remained unconvinced that it might not have come from an outside agency. “It could have come from anywhere,” said Llong, which again seemed contrary to the visual evidence which suggested that never mind “anywhere”, actually it could only have come from one source. Snicko flatlined, but then it did so too when the ball struck Lyon’s shoulder. However, the umpires protocol says that in any case real time Snicko should only be used if nothing shows on Hot Spot.
The batsman was already on his way back to the pavilion when Llong announced, to general astonishment, that he could find no grounds to overturn the original decision.
A fundamental plank of the British criminal justice system, amply demonstrated over the past nine weeks at Southwark Crown Court, is the presumption of innocence until guilt is proven beyond reasonable doubt, and so it seems with Llong’s interpretation of this aspect of the decision review system.
That in itself is a big mistake in cricket, where the basis of law in this regard, as any bowler will tell you, is diametrically opposite so that all batsmen should be presumed guilty unless proven otherwise. So Lyon, who had yet to score, survived, went on to make 34 as the last two wickets added 108, Australia gained a slender lead of 22 and went on to win a low-scoring match by three wickets.
It is absurd to hypothesise and say that Llong’s decision cost New Zealand the Test, but it is not unreasonable to say that it wasn’t especially helpful to them. Now, following the Kiwi’s coded no-comment interview objections and an official one to the ICC asking for clarification of what was a pretty transparent process – with Llong’s interaction with Ravi and the television production team audible for all to hear – the ICC has decided that while he followed the correct protocols as set down in its instructions, Llong got it wrong, which sort of appears contradictory, doesn’t it? Even Sir Bernard’s primitive device would surely have sent Lyon packing. So, quite possibly, would UltraEdge, a new technology developed by Hawk-Eye as an advancement on Snicko, already tested and ratified by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and approved now for use as part of DRS forthwith.
This is said to be able to differentiate more clearly the difference in noises made by bat, pad, clothing or ground, the “could have come from anywhere” that Llong postulated. As ever, though, this has cost implications, and will not be rolled out universally.
My own solution, winding back the years, and offered only partly tongue in cheek, was to have batsmen somehow attached to a polygraph and ask them if they hit it. “ Nick it, Nathan? You’re lying, off you tootle.” Still pretty primitive, though.
But in The London Spy, the dark drama currently playing out on the BBC, the algorithm discovered in the cylinder by Danny, which uses sophisticated word-analysis developed by GCHQ – “a fingerprint for our truths and our lies” – as a definitive lie-detector, thus bringing an end to lying, would be heading straight for ICC headquarters in Dubai. Not even Stuart Broad or Brad Haddin could bare-face that one.
