Leg before the wicket or LBW has remained one the most controversial modes of dismissals in cricket. The number of variables involved in re...
Leg before the wicket or LBW has remained one the most controversial modes of dismissals in cricket. The number of variables involved in reaching the right call like where the ball pitched, whether it hit the bat before hitting the pad, was the batsman offering the shot or not, the bounce, which part of the body has ball hit, height, bounce, seam, swing… and most importantly what does the umpire on-field think about all these.
With improved technology, the umpires have started to come under more spotlight as the viewers could watch all that and more on their television sets. Much earlier before the current technology, broadcasters started using the technology to draw a virtual path to show where the ball would have pitched and predict the path of the ball after it hit the pad. When the International Cricket Council decided to co-opt this technology into the Decision Review System, it was generally believed that this could be the end of all the controversies surrounding LBW.
But technology can rarely be implemented 100% perfectly in sport. So, something called umpire’s call was allowed to be part of the DRS protocol prominently for LBW decisions, to cover for this margin of error.
According to ICC’s playing conditions, umpire’s call of the...
