Incompetent Reporting From Malcolm Conn

Malcolm Conn seems to think that DRS and any use of the third umpire are synonymous. That is the only way to read this report from the award winning Australian cricket journalist. He writes,

Peter Siddle robbed Sachin Tendulkar of his 100th international century, bowling the little master for 73, but the local pace hero was dudded by technology denied to the Australians when they batted.

He continues

India's unjustifiable opposition to the umpire decision review system (DRS) has left this tour in a technological mess. 

While umpires can use it to check line decisions such as no-balls, run outs and stumpings, and also to check disputed catches, players no longer have the right to review dodgy decisions.

Umpires have been able to ask for the assistance of the third umpire since the year 1992. For at least a couple of years now, they have also been able to check for no-balls when batsmen are dismissed. Conn pulls of a neat trick here, playing on the disappointment of Australian fans over the reprieve that Rahul Dravid got to hit India's opposition to DRS. He denies the utterly radical nature of allowing players to review "dodgy" decisions by casually equating it with the Umpire's ability to review decisions.

At this point, he could have chosen to take the argument to its logical conclusion and asked the really interesting questions - Would we account for the overwhelming majority of bad decisions by allowing on field Umpires to ask for help? Would we do even better by allowing the third umpire to offer help, unprompted if he sees something obviously wrong? Do we really need hotspot and ball-tracking if we do this?

But he doesn't.

Obviously, the Decision Review System has the following two essential features (without which it wouldn't be the DRS):

1. Player Review: Allows players to ask for a second opinion after an Umpire on the field as made a ruling.
2. The use of specific technologies: Ball-tracking (Hawkeye, Eagle Eye), Heat signatures (Hotspot), and in some cases, sound (snickometer)

Merely reviewing the video replay does not, in and of itself constitute "DRS".

Conn's article sits smugly in the shady valley between news and opinion. This space allows him to pass of rank bad, wrong opinions as facts. This is another example.

Channel 9's new technology, using six high-speed cameras and fibre optic cable, tracks the ball 130 times on the same path, offering far greater accuracy. 

Nine now uses Eagle Eye, which is twice as good as the previous Hawk Eye and far superior to the ICC's third-rate system.

The first sentence is partially true, in that the ball is probably tracked 130 times by the new cameras. EagleEye (previously known as VirtualEye) uses a framerate of 230 fps, has done so for at least a year now, and hence, the 130 frames of tracking is not new. The claim about "offering far greater accuracy" has been disputed vigorously, not by BCCI, but by London based Hawkeye Innovations Ltd., the company that produces Hawkeye, EagleEye's competitor. Hawkeye was used in the 2011 World Cup (for DRS) and in the recent series in England (even though DRS was not used). Further, Conn does not say that both companies deploy different cameras, and different numbers of cameras in series where DRS is not used, as opposed to series where DRS is used. This discussion of the differences between the two technologies is necessarily brief. For a detailed discussion, please see the link in the second line of this paragraph.

As problematic as that first sentence is, the deeper problem is the second sentence. I suppose it is lyrical in some kitschy way, but by what measure is EagleEye "twice as good as the previous HawkEye"? Also which is the previous "HawkEye"? The older version of EagleEye? Or HawkEye, as produced by the London based company?

If someone has actually tested the two, and found that one is twice as good as the other then this is big news. I would like to see the details of this test - the method, the data, the findings, the analysis.

Finally, where is this phantom ball tracking system developed by the ICC? Do they know they have been developing one?

Should someone who claims that a non-existent ICC developed ball-tracking system is "third rate" not be disqualified from offering (paid) opinions and judgments about the competence of that organisation?

This would not pass the muster in a freshman undergraduate homework assignment, the sort that the average undergraduate does at the last minute while nursing his or her weekly hangover, let alone in a professional work of journalism!

It seems to me that Conn has worked out a formula. Use a provocative title - "India coach Duncan Fletcher is a DRS hypocrite" or "Controversial DRS system has cricket in a mess", fill space with some  similarly preposterous claims that will pander to the worst instincts of your most partisan readers, and five minutes later, you have yet another succinct hit job.

My title for this post is admittedly a poor attempt to ape Conn. I apologize for this. I cannot match his virtuosity when it comes to tabloid titling. I wonder how he would title this.