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Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Giant Screen's First Victim : Collingwood

It was a case of on-field umpiring at its very worst. In the 6th India-England currently in progress at the Brit Oval, the local English umpire, P.J. Hartley made an absolute fool of himself when he decided to not call for the TV umpire on a close run-out call.
In the 18th over of the England innings, Kevin Pietersen drove Ganguly to cover and decided to go for a single that wasn't really there. It wasn't the best of throws from cover but wicket-keeper Dhoni managed to remove the bails just before Collingwood made it to the crease - much to the chagrin of Hartley who was watching the replay live on the giant screen with thousands others. Hastily he called for the 3rd umpire but the damage had been done by then.
Expectedly the decision wait against the batsman, and Collingwood was definitely not amused. I agree with Collingwood - on many other grounds not fitted with Live Screeens, he could have got away because of Hartley's stupidity! Instead Paul Collingwood became the first batsman to be given out by the 'Giant Screen.'

2 comments:

Agyan said...

Yeah, and without the screen at Lord's, Pitersen would have been out a couple of balls earlier in the Test series.

Technically, the umpire was right, as he is allowed to change his decision even without technology (if u remember, Sachin was recalled in that crucial DLF match at Malaysia last year).

In the post-match analysis, Harsha Bhogle was right, England cannot have it both ways, saving Pietersen in Tests, and not losing Collingwood in ODIs.

Homer said...

I wonder if Mr Fat Arse will be hauled in front of the Match Referee for dissent.. Remember all the brouhaha over Sachin's . This was way more confrontational that anything Sachin did.

Cheers