Comments on: Bending the rules ex post facto

By: skepticlawyer

skepticlawyer — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:05:49 +0000

OT but I am having to be alert to some very strange spam heading for this thread. If you see something that purports to be about cricket but actually contains links to sites selling a certain well known performancing enhancing drug, then you’ll know one’s got through.

By: Sinclair Davidson

Sinclair Davidson — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:39:15 +0000

DD - I did concede “as best I can recall”. Anyway, I see Hair’s back.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 09:05:55 +0000

the ICC has fallen to third world standards of governance.

Maybe we should get Mugabe into sort it out.

By: derrida derider

derrida derider — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 08:57:35 +0000

Sinclair, FWIW your account of the events leaves out a couple of rather pertinent points. Hair consulted the other umpire (Doctorow) and they examined the ball together. Only after Doctorow’s agreed with him did Hair signal to deduct the runs. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the Pakistanis and ICC have not crucified Doctorow because he’s West Indian.

But yeah, the ICC has fallen to third world standards of governance.

By: Sinclair Davidson

Sinclair Davidson — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:01:44 +0000

The AFL are being sued over the umpiring error at Launceston. Fantastic.

By: skepticlawyer

skepticlawyer — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:27:17 +0000

Michael Holding’s view here.

By: Legal Eagle

Legal Eagle — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 03:15:01 +0000

Agreed, Andrew - that is a very good distinction to draw.

Once a decision is made, and play continues - well, the moving finger has written and life goes on…you can’t then renege. But, as you say, no play continued in this instance.

I would agree that if Umpire Hair’s decision was not merited (and it does seem to be a bad decision) pecuniary restitution would have been better than changing the outcome of the game.

By: Andrew Reynolds

Andrew Reynolds — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:43:40 +0000

Adrien, SL,
Just a small observation. The difference between the match here and the Turkey / SK (and the footy for that matter) is that here the match had finished and there was no further play after the Ump’s call - so the subsequent challenge to the Ump’s call could not affect the subsequent play in the match.
Not sure if I have expressed that well, so to put it another way - the offside call was made and play progressed from that point. Subsequenly goals were scored (or not scored) that would have been affected by the call that could be contested. In the case of the Eng. vs. Pak. match no further play occurred so you have the luxury of making a judgement on the ump’s decision in isolation.
That said, I would agree that the original decision should stand on its merits - but I would not agree that matches should not be changed in outcome where the decision is made to end the game. If the umpire ends the game and awards the match to one team (or awards a draw) and the decision is subsequently found to be wrong in law then it should be open to the appropriate authority to change the declared result as a form of restitution.
This should not be the case where play occurs subsequent to the decision.

By: Adrien

Adrien — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:12:10 +0000

The Pakistanis might’ve been right but if you change rules afterward to suit things then you make ‘em rubbery. Every time something happens and you don’t like it just change th rules. Might as well not have ‘em.

Sport’s full of injustice at the hands of the rules. In the 2002 World Cup Turkey beat South Korea (just). The reason it didn’t come down to penalities is because one of Koreas goals was ruled offside. It wasn’t offside - just.

The Koreans had used the offside rules very well during the tournament and did so here. But it was very close and the ref’s call, tho’ wrong, was understandable. For very practical reasons, even if the ref’s decisions are wrong, they stand anyway.

Tought for the Koreans. But that’s the game. I don’t see why rules should be changed to alter history. The choice is always between the best of two bad scenarios. Changing the rules to suit is worse then not doing so and leaving unfair results stand.

IMHO.

Turkey v Korea 2002 was the Best ever btw.

By: Sinclair Davidson

Sinclair Davidson — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 21:55:56 +0000

“content-independent rulings ” ??

I’ve never been to a ‘real’ criket match, but I have been to the football and IMHO the community are somewhat intolerant of poor umpiring decisions and game administrators ignore the consumers at their peril. (Sorry to say SL, there just aren’t enough purists around to preserve the tradition that the umpire is a god. There are so few purists around that 20/20 is going to be the most popular version of the game).