England’s Bazball was buried deep down coming to India as the hosts have pocketed the 5-match Test series with a 3-1 lead and one game remaining. Apart from India’s excellence in home conditions, the ball-tracking component of the Decision Review System (DRS) has troubled them the most. After losing the Rajkot fixture, Ben Stokes’ comments on the ‘Umpire’s Call’ garnered mixed reactions from the cricket fraternity. However, the debate intensified after Joe Root’s dismissal in England’s second innings in Ranchi Test.
The incident happened in the 17th over of England’s second essay in Ranchi. Ashwin’s tossed-up delivery on the leg-stump line wrapped Root on the front pad. Umpire Kumara Dharmasena wasn’t convinced as the delivery seemed to be pitching outside the leg stump. But India reviewed the decision. A major portion of the ball appeared to be pitching outside the leg-stumped but the technology considered it to be fair enough to rule Root lbw.
Days after the incident, that left the English camp baffled, the founder of HawkEye, Paul Hawkins had his say on what transpired in Joe Root’s case.
Speaking with Simon Huges on ‘The Analyst’ podcast, Hawkins explained how technology plays a role in the game of tennis to rule out the ball falling in or out of the line.
“So, firstly, you measure the width of the stumps on each day. So that then becomes the line between what’s pitched in line and what’s not pitched in line. And it was a very close one. It’s one that in tennis, you will occasionally get a 0 or 0 scenario and tennis have decided that it’s not out until it’s not 0. Mm, it’s 1. So actually, in tennis, we shift the bounce mark just for a presentation perspective. So a 0 becomes a 1, so you can clearly see the mark. But that’s just a presentation thing,” Hawkins said.
“There’s nothing different with the tracking or the answer. It just makes it clearer to the viewer. It would have been clearer on TV if the track had come off the ball. So you can see the ball more clearly over the line, which happens automatically if the ball has pitched outside leg stump,” he added.
Why was Joe Root given Out?
Hawkins further said in Root’s case, the ball pitched 1 mm in the line than out which made the umpires follow the guidelines and rule the England batter out.
“It must be 1 than out, because otherwise, we wouldn’t have said it’s pitched in line. But it is a very close one. As per the laws. We’ve given the right answer, but we failed in the ability to not be the story. And perhaps there’s a learning opportunity in terms of our presentation and stuff to make those really close ones slightly clearer,” he concluded.
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