A faith in technology was restated by the International Cricket Council (ICC) in an assessment of contentious decisions during England’s victory over Australia in the first Ashes Test.
The ICC said on Tuesday the umpiring team made seven errors during the Trent Bridge Test, of which three were uncorrected and four were corrected by the Decision Review System (DRS), which allows teams two unsuccessful referrals per innings.
The use of DRS meant 95.8 percent of umpiring decisions were correct as opposed to 90.3 percent before reviews.
In a pivotal moment during England’s second innings last week, Stuart Broad didn’t walk when he should have been given out for nicking a delivering to Australia captain Michael Clarke. Clarke had already used Australia’s two referrals, and Broad’s decision to continue sparked a debate over the batsman’s ethics, Clarke’s decision-making, and Aleem Dar’s future as a Test umpire.
The other uncorrected errors also involved an lbw involving Broad, and when Jonathan Trott was given lbw when he was originally given not out.
“Like the players, umpires can also have good and bad days but we all know that the umpire’s decision, right or wrong, is final and must be accepted,” ICC chief executive David Richardson said.
“While the ICC has complete faith in the ability of its umpires, our confidence in technology is also strengthened by the fact that there was an increase in the number of correct decisions in the Trent Bridge Test through the use of the DRS.”
Richardson said there was still room for improvement.
“Technology was introduced with the objective of eradicating the obvious umpiring errors, and to get as many correct decisions as possible,” he said. “If it can help increase the correct decisions by 5.5 per cent, then it is a good outcome, but we must continue to strive to improve umpiring and the performance of the DRS.”
