Ricky Ponting and the rules and standards of the on-field management of Test Matches are only passing acquaintances. His vociferous, even boorish protest after Kevin Pietersen was given not out upon review at Melbourne was uncalled for. I accept this provisionally. In general it is a fair criticism of the Australian captain. He has deserved it given his on-field antics over the years. I have found occasion to accuse Ricky Ponting of cheating on at least once before. But, I will suggest that it must be seen in a new light in the post-UDRS world. UDRS has tended to convict batsmen on evidence which is far from conclusive. UDRS also gives players the opportunity to question an Umpire's decision. That being the case, and especially given the fact that the UDRS review is shown live on the big screen at the ground in the Ashes, Ponting was within his rights to ask questions, especially given the poor quality of evidence. So I have no interest in defending Ricky Ponting per se, but I do have an interest in defending a player for asking questions in the age of UDRS. UDRS has changed the meaning of dissent, and while the Australian captain may not be the perfect messenger, he is in this case, an apt one.
Here's a some what similar decision which was overturned. It's Ricky Ponting's dismissal in the 2nd innings at Perth. The question is not whether or not he actually hit it. The question is whether the evidence that is considered admissible through UDRS shows conclusively that it was definitely out. Remember, the original decision was Not Out, it would require conclusive evidence to show that it was Out. As suggested in the video, the HotSpot evidence is thin - there is no appreciable brightening of the spot where the ball may or may not have brushed the glove. The fact that Ponting was rolling his wrists makes this even less conclusive, for there may well have been something registered on Hotspot, but that portion of the glove may have been obscured from sight too quickly for it to register on the visual for any length of time.
The video suggests the following:
1. Hotspot was negative, at the very least fatally inconclusive.
2. One piece of evidence which suggests that there was some glove is that there was a sound. As we have seen many times before, there can be plenty of sources for the sound. The one reason why snickometer (which later corroborated the sound) is not used in UDRS is because it is unreliable, and even when it does indicate a sound, it is unable to definitely identify the source.
The argument that I've heard from a lot of people, is that there was a deflection. Let's test this. I downloaded the above video and used a free video to jpg converter to break it down into every single available frame. 7 minutes and 40 seconds of video yielded 13810 image files, each 320x240 - 30 frames per second. It's not as good as getting 30 frames per second from the original HD video, but it's reasonable. Whats more, it's already more evidence than that which is available to the third umpire. The delivery in question from the time Finn is in his delivery stride, to the point where it passing Ponting is about 40 frames and I show it in the flickr slides below.
When you see the video broken down into individual frames, it is easy to see why, even if the camera is placed perfectly behind middle stump, and a perfectly vertical line can be drawn on the screen between the centre of the camera lens, the middle stump at the bowlers end and the middle stump at the batsman's end, it is impossible say for sure in the case of thin edges that there was in fact a discernible deflection. Every single frame has a different foreshortening (perspective constructed by the camera lens), a different level of zoom. Further, the ball is traveling at different speeds in each frame, it is traveling in a curve and it is hard to say for sure that the ball didn't seam or swerve at all off the wicket itself.
If you look at the break down of the video from behind the batsman, the question can be narrowed even further - it is clear that the ball passed just below the glove. The question is, did it touch the glove on the way or not? There is nothing conclusive to suggest that this was the case.
My point here is not to suggest that Ponting definitely didn't hit it. He may well have. In the longstanding Australian tradition, he wouldn't have admitted it even if it was a clear edge if he didn't see the catch being completed with his own eyes. My point is to suggest that there was nothing in the available (and admissible) evidence per se that conclusively proved that he hit it. It was a decision made by the third umpire based on suggestive rather than conclusive evidence - on a gut feeling.
Once it has been established that hotspot is not entirely reliable - it has failed to detect any edges in situations where snickometer has, and even in situations where the batsman has walked, we are left with the use of video to detect deflections. In the case of thin ones, the evidence is often not conclusive. In such cases, the third umpire must necessarily behave as he would on the field, and apply his judgment, and not depend on the evidence of the various simulations to be conclusive.
Given the extreme emphasis on the requirement that the evidence needs to be conclusive in order for the on-field decision to be overturned, Ponting is well within his rights to why a similar judgment was not exercised in the Pietersen decision. After all, at least one person was absolutely sure that Pietersen hit it. The ultimate decision in Pietersen's case was probably right, and the evidence in that specific instance was reasonably conclusive even though an explanation for the little hotspot near the toe of the bat would be welcome. Why was this mark so clear, when an expected mark in the Ponting case at Perth did not show up at all?. Why did snickometer (not used in UDRS) register a noise in the Ponting case, but not register a noise corresponding to the hotspot on the toe of Pietersen's bat at Melbourne? Ponting's frustration with UDRS is understandable, especially given the fact that his visiting counterpart has made some inspired guesses vis a vis UDRS.
While he deserved his fine going by the pre-UDRS era Code of Conduct, it is a bit rich for the ICC to demand good behavior (and define it now as though nothing has changed post-UDRS) after giving in to Ponting-style behavior and allowing players to question umpiring decisions in the first place. If players can ask for reviews, and then look at the same evidence that the Umpire can, then, if the Umpire decides to reverse a marginal call, players are well within their rights to feel aggrieved. If it is the point of the referral to provide teams with an assurance that obvious errors will not stand, then is it not a problem when marginal decisions are overturned sometimes, but not at other times? As a stakeholder in the decision making process, a Captain's protest in such an event has to be seen differently from the way it was seen in the era when the Umpire's decision was truly final.
I expect much more of this with UDRS. More marginal decisions will be considered, and new inconsistencies will emerge in the way Umpires interpret the available evidence.