Originally posted by Barbirollians
View Post
Actually, it's good to have some balance on commentary but Maxwell got well and truly flummoxed by the DRS, rather letting his partisanship get in the way of his understanding of the system. For example, firstly he criticised Dar for not giving Broad out partly on the basis that as England had two reviews remaining, they would have challenged the decision had Broad somehow failed to nick the ball. However, this would have been contrary to the laws of the game which stipulate that an umpire should give the correct decision in his opinion. Moreover, had the decision been wrong, Dar would have been marked down under the ICC's scoring of umpires.
His next DRS howler was when Smith was given out lbw on a ball which pitched just in line with leg stump. "How can that be given out?" he whined, "only half the ball's in line with the stumps. If that was the wicket it would be umpire's call and he would be not out!" What escaped Maxwell was that Hawkeye is an objective replay of the delivery, and only predictive after the point when the ball hits the batsman's pad. Therefore, the fact that only half the ball pitched in line was clear evidence of what had happened and not predictive.
My own preference for commentators: Agnew; Blofield (though verges on self parody); Ed Smith. Among the summarisers: Vaughan; Marks.
Mann too often misses the joke and has little rapport with his summarisers, Tuffers concentrates too much on being blokish and Boycott should have been put out to grass years ago. Still, streets ahead of Sky though.
Comment