Umpire with little experience in hot seat

CRICKET NEWS:AN INEXPERIENCED umpire will be in cricket's hottest seat tomorrow when South Africa and England begin a Test series that will further trial the International Cricket Council's controversial Umpire Decision Review System.

Amish Saheba, an Indian official who has been on the international panel for three years but has stood in only two Tests, will be the third umpire who will pass judgment, on technological evidence, on some decisions made by the two elite officials in the middle – Aleem Dar and Steve Davis.

The performance of the third official has come under scrutiny following acrimonious incidents in the second Test between Australia and West Indies in which a decision by Mark Benson was overturned by another experienced man in Asad Rauf, on flimsy evidence, and ended in the umpire returning home through ill health.

With Dave Richardson, the ICC general manager, intent on driving through the principle of player referral, despite opposition from England and India, the skill of the man in the television box is becoming as important as those umpires on the field.

“It is not ideal to have a less experienced umpire,” Richardson admitted yesterday, “but Amish Saheba has been appointed and we must go with that.”

England’s only encounter with the UDRS was in the Caribbean last winter, an experience that at times descended into high farce. In this series they will be exposed to Hawk-Eye’s predictive element for the first time when lbw decisions are queried.

The third umpire will be able to go through the three distinct phases of play that the on-field umpire uses in his decision – analysis of where the ball pitched, where the point of impact occurred and whether the ball would have hit the stumps.

Viewers will see three boxes of different colours on the screen: red boxes show that the ball has pitched in line with the stumps or outside the line of off-stump, that it has struck the batsman in line with the stumps, or that it is hitting the stumps; each green denotes it has pitched outside leg-stump, has hit outside the line and is missing an area within the stumps - the “area of confidence” – defined by the centre of the ball striking within a region bordered by lines down the middle of the outer stumps and below the bottom of the bails.

This is to take into account a margin of error in the technology and one which the umpire himself might use. A limit of 2.5 metres down the pitch has been imposed for a definitive decision and on being informed of the distance, the on-field umpire’s original judgment will stand – shown on screen by an amber box.

There is a further caveat: if a batsman's challenge shows the ball impacted only marginally in line rather than the full half-ball, and/or would have only just feathered the stumps, the out decision stands. If the decision had been not out but the fielding side challenged, then that too would stand. So two different decisions from the same delivery. It could end in tears. GuardianService

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England all-rounder Stuart Broad will turn down offers to play in next years Indian Premier League in order to be in peak form for the Ashes in Australia. Broad, 23, said that playing for England had always been his boyhood dream and remained his priority. My dream has always been to play for England and money will not make you happy, Broad said.