There was a massive controversy surrounding Joe Root‘s LBW dismissal during the fourth Test match against India in Ranchi with several ex-cricketers even criticising the technology for what they thought was a erroneous DRS review. During England’s second innings, Ashwin’s delivery crashed into Root’s pads but the umpire was not convinced about the LBW shout. India went for a review and the replay showed that although it seemed like the majority of the ball pitched outside the leg-stump, the technology deemed it fair and gave it out. Some experts and fans were not happy with the decision but Paul Hawkins, the founder of HawkEye, provided an explanation regarding the controversial decision.
Speaking with Simon Hughes on ‘The Analyst’ podcast, Hawkins explained the reason.
“So, firstly, you measure the width of the stumps on each day. So that then becomes the line between what’s pitched in line and what’s not pitched in line. And it was a very close one. It’s one that in tennis, you will occasionally get a 0 or 0 scenario and tennis have decided that it’s not out until it’s not 0. Mm, it’s 1. So actually, in tennis, we shift the bounce mark just for a presentation perspective. So a 0 becomes a 1, so you can clearly see the mark. But that’s just a presentation thing,” Hawkins said.
“There’s nothing different with the tracking or the answer. It just makes it clearer to the viewer. It would have been clearer on TV if the track had come off the ball. So you can see the ball more clearly over the line, which happens automatically if the ball has pitched outside leg stump,” he added.
Meanwhile, India consolidated their second spot in the World Test Championship (WTC) standing following their five-wicket win against Ben Stokes‘ England in the fourth Test at Ranchi.
The hosts, led by Rohit Sharma, took an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-Test series.
India’s point-percentage jumped from 59.52 to 64.58 following the hard-fought win and they further extended the gap with Australia (55%) and Bangladesh (50%), third third and fourth-placed teams, respectively.
England, on the other hand, are languishing at eighth with 19.44%, just a spot ahead of bottom-placed Sri Lanka, who are yet to open their account. India have so far played eight Tests in the current WTC cycle, winning five, losing two and drawing one match.
(With PTI inputs)
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