The DRS conundrum: Is the BCCI right about the DRS after all?

Several inconsistencies pertaining to the Hawk-Eye technology are hidden when this graphic is shown on screen

Hawk Eye

While the issues with catch related DRS are not fundamental-- but more due to not learning from the mistakes made and not enough corrective steps being taken-- the issues with ball tracking are rooted right at the very foundation itself.

With the Hawk-Eye technology, however, the accuracy of the technology itself is under question. This is the primary objection of the BCCI to its use.

Now I know this statement raises a lot of eyebrows, and people would say that Tennis uses it too. Why, then, has no one ever heard complaints in Tennis about the accuracy of Hawk Eye?

To begin with, the use of Hawk-Eye in tennis is limited to merely tracking the ball upto the point that the ball bounced. Did it bounce inside the line or outside the line-- that's all tennis uses the Hawk-Eye for.

As long as the Hawk-Eye can relay this information, it’s all fine. What the ball does after bouncing is something tennis doesn’t bother itself with, and thus, the role of the Hawk-Eye in tennis is very restricted compared to cricket.

In cricket, however, the Hawk-Eye is used to determine not only where the ball bounced, but also how it moved after it bounced up to the point of impact with the pads.

And then, it also predicts how the ball would travel after the collision with the batsman’s pads. The issues with Hawk-Eye arise when it comes to tracking the ball after it has bounced.

BCCI’s chief objection is that how can the Hawk Eye tell the difference in bounce on a slow and low Indian pitch and a fast and bouncy track in Australia? Can the Hawk-Eye tell the difference between leg spin and off spin? Between in-swing and out-swing?

How can Hawk Eye account for all these variations in what the ball will do after it lands. Remember, these are things tennis doesn’t need the Hawk-Eye to do. The initial reaction that I always had to these reservations by BCCI was that BCCI is asking the wrong questions and raising incorrect objections.

Hawk-Eye doesn’t need to do all these things. Hawk-Eye merely tracks the ball as it pitches and up to the point of impact with the pads. Post-impact, the Hawk-Eye merely extends the trajectory it has already tracked up to the stumps.

So whatever variations are after pitching, whether the delivery is, off-spin or leg-spin, they are already tracked and accounted for by the Hawk-Eye.

The hidden flaws of the Hawk-Eye

That was until I came across an incident involving Phil Hughes during a Test match against Sri Lanka. Hughes was ruled out lbw and to the naked eye, on replays, it was clear that the ball had spun considerably towards the off side after pitching.

However when the Hawk-Eye graphics came up, it showed the ball would keep going on straight after pitching. This caused a lot of debate and eventually. Steve Carter, the MD of Hawk-Eye Innovations, admitted to the mistake. However what he said later was extremely alarming.

Steve Carter explained that the mistake had been the result of several factors and one of them was that the ball had travelled less than 40cm between pitching and striking Hughes' pad. Under Hawk-Eye's configuration for the Sri Lanka series, ball-tracking cannot be deemed conclusive if the distance between pitching and impact is less than 40cm.

Suddenly all of BCCI’s reservations about Hawk Eye having to account for the bounce on different surfaces became very real. If the ball pitched 40cm or less before impact with the batsman’s pads, then Hawk-Eye was struggling to pick up the path the ball took after pitching.

So, there was no question of it accurately extending that path up to the stumps. This inaccuracy could sometimes be so large, that Hawk-Eye could miss the ball spinning after pitching entirely and show it to be heading straight instead.

Having said that, how can the Hawk-Eye be trusted? The BCCI’s issues with Hawk Eye suddenly became all too real.

Just think of how many LBW reviews would fall in this less than 40 cm rule.

However, the story doesn’t end there. What Steve Carter further said was – “We are currently under instruction that the 40cm graphic shouldn't be displayed in the circumstances of the lbw appeal in question.”

In other words, the ICC has barred Hawk-Eye from showing a “less than 40 cm” rule caveat to the viewer, so no one ever knows whether he review in question falls within the margin of Hawk Eye’s error zone, and therefore should be taken with a pinch of salt.

In the absence of this caveat, when a review for one of these ‘less than 40 cm’ LBWs is done, and when the Hawk-Eye graphic appears and the line is drawn up to the stumps, the viewers take those lines with the same finality as they would take a catch being taken or a batsman’s stumps being knocked out, without knowing that those lines are potentially inaccurate.

That the umpires know this inaccuracy range is also debatable. If Hawk-Eye is struggling to pick up the actual trajectory of the ball, then how are those lines being drawn?

As a BCCI official once said, those lines of the Hawk-Eye are merely someone replacing the umpire’s imagination on how the ball would travel after impact, with his own imagination.