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Soon after England cricketer Monty Panesar climbed the promenade at a Brighton establishment and showered his anger on the bouncers below who had thrown him out of the club, Damien Fleming tweeted: @lehmo23: @bowlologist did they refer it? And did it come up on hot spot? Referred. Hawkeye said it was missing leg. #TheSlashes #Monty
This was the sole occasion in the ongoing Ashes series when a reference to the umpire decision review system (DRS) was accompanied by smiles. Else, every time someone mentioned Hawk-Eye or Hotspot, the frown levels dramatically went up in both the English and Australian cricket camps. Even columnists have been discussing the indiscretions of the DRS technologies, allowing only minor digressions to discuss the performances of Ian Bell, Ashton Agar and Michael Clarke.
There must have been wry smiles in the offices of Indian cricket. For it took the champions of DRS, Australia and England, to prove in an Ashes series on English soil what India had always been pointing out in refusing to relent to DRS in its cricket matches that the sciences used in the DRS are not fully reliable.
The DRS currently uses two technologies Hawk-Eye and Hotspot. Contrary to popular belief, the audiometric Snickometer is not part of DRS, but may be deployed by the International Cricket Council soon.
HAWK-EYE:
The hawk in the name is a clever play on the originators name and the technologys function as a mechanical super-eye. Invented by Paul Hawkins of England, Hawk-Eye uses mathematics to chartthe likely path of a moving object with the help of six high-performance cameras. Most tennis followers would also have seen its use in that sport to determine whether serves and rallies fall within the court lines. From this season, it will also be employed in the English Premier League football matches to determine whether the ball has crossed the goal line or not.
What it can do: The cameras use a sophisticated program of image and time to triangulate the position of the cricket ball at various periods in its flight in relation to the wicket-to-wicket rectangle and the vertical plane of the stumps. Therefore, it can determine, within a 3.6 mm margin of error, the spot where a ball is likely to be at a given time. Plotting these spots creates the potential flight path of the ball. So it can tell the umpire where the ball pitched and where its headed to help him decide whether a batsman is out leg before wicket or whether the ball would have missed the stumps.
What it cannot do: The flight of the ball is a statistically created path. It does not take into account uncertainties of the turf (say factors like a minuscule divot at the spot where the ball hit the pitch or the softness/hardness of the soil). It also cant take into consideration humidity or individual skills that can affect swing. Morever, it defers to human judgement in close calls if Hawk-Eye says the ball was hitting or missing the stumps by half its width, the decision remains the umpires call.
HOTSPOT:
Hotspot uses two infra-red cameras to capture the heat signature when two objects collide. It was initially invented by French scientist Nicholas Bion, but adapted for use in sports by Warren Brennan. One of the problems related to its use in cricket matches is its high cost of operation. Not many boards can afford to spend the $6,000 per day for a two-camera set-up.
What it can do: It captures black and white images with telltale white patches that show where contact friction between the bat and ball has generated heat. It, therefore, is useful for confirming snicks off the bat in cases of catches or in disallowing leg-before decisions.
What it cannot do: Since only two cameras are used and even these are placed above the field of play, contact points between bat and ball at certain angles are beyond the scope of the system. This means Hotspot can provide proof of contact only when it takes place in line of sight of cameras. Now, Brennan also seems to suggest that batsmen can decieve Hotspots heat imagers by covering their bat with heat-resistant silicone tape.
As the Indians have maintained, these technologies need to be fine-tuned. Until then, perhaps a Monty act here and there is the only way DRS will amuse.
