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Boasting the most feared and most formidable bowling foursome in contemporary world cricket, Australia need no assistance to best Roston Chase’s now-struggling-to-find-their-feet West Indies.
In the first match of the three-Test series, they won by 159 runs in Barbados last week, and they seemed to get it anyway. From an unlikely source.
Adrian Holdstock. Remember the name?
(via ESPN Cricinfo.)
West Indies coach Daren Sammy says he does. Speaking at the end of play on Day Two, the West Indies coach spoke his mind. He has had concerns about the 55-year-old South African’s umpiring since after his team’s recent ODI series in England.
Hear Sammy in the post-Day Two interview: “You don’t want to get yourself in a situation where you’re wondering about certain umpires, is there something against this team. But when you see decision after decision, then it raises the question.”
Sammy, it needs to be pointed out, felt the need to take a rare—if not unprecedented—step in the wake of Holdstock’s perceived “errors”. Accompanied by CWI Director of Cricket Miles Bascombe, he approached ICC match referee Javaglal Srinath to raise with him the issue of Holdstock’s performance.
His reward? A successful recommendation to the ICC that Sammy be fined 15% of his match fee and hit with one demerit point for violating Article 2.7 of the ICC’s Code of Conduct.
In his post-match comments, skipper Chase raised the issue of “so many questionable calls”.
“It’s clear to see anyone would feel bad or feel hurt about those decisions,” he told an interviewer. “You’re out there playing to win, giving it your all, and it seems like everyone is against you.”
He named no names and has incurred no sanction. Yet.
Lest it appear that the perception of error was somehow influenced by sour grapes on the part of West Indians, here are some excerpted texts from ESPNcricinfo’s live ball-by-ball commentary on Day One and Day Two.
Photo: Randy Brooks/ Associated Press.
The first is from the 46th over of the Australian 1st innings. Shamar Joseph has been reintroduced by Chase as the home side tries to break the stubborn partnership between Travis Head and Beau Webster. Head is on strike.
Note that all sections in bold were in the original:
Has that carried?! Shamar is pleading, and the umpires are checking now with their colleague upstairs!
On a length outside off. Head throws the kitchen sink at it and the ball grazes the under-edge. Seems to bounce before getting to Hope, who was also unsure about it. No doubt about the nick, which is anyway a lot closer than it first seemed.
The ball seems to carry through to Hope, but the third umpire (Adrian Holdstock) says that there is no conclusive evidence that the ball has carried.
Oh, my word! That call will be debated long after this day is done and how big a decision will that prove to be?!
Incident number two occurs in the 21st over of the West Indies 1st innings. They are replying to the Aussies’ below-par 180 but are struggling after losing the top three plus a nightwatchman. Shai Hope and Chase are attempting to stop the bleeding.
Chase is on strike to Josh Hazlewood.
Inside edge runs to fine leg but Australia review! They think it was pad before inside edge. This is tight for the third umpire.
He deems the inside edge was first and it runs to fine leg for a single. Australia are bemused but they lose a review.
Same innings for incident three, over #49. Australian captain Pat Cummins is bowling to his opposite number, Chase.
Given lbw. Chase reviews immediately! Back of a length on middle and off and it shoots low as he went back to defend. Chase thinks he got a little inside edge before it thudded into the back pad. It was going to cannon into middle.
Ultraedge isn’t showing conclusive spikes although there are a couple of smaller ones close together. Adrian Holdstock says there’s a clear gap between bat and ball but then wants to rock and roll it a lot. He says there’s a spike but there’s a gap between bat and ball. He concludes there is no bat involved.
Ball tracking has it hitting in line and smashing the top of middle. Chase is out and they lose the review.
The final excerpt describes another incident in the WI first innings. Beau Webster is bowling over #58 to Hope.
Brilliant one hander from Carey! Caught behind off the inside edge! Webster produces another beauty… [I]t nips in, catches the inside edge and Carey flings himself full stretch to his left to take but hang on! It sticks in the glove but did part of the ball touch the ground as he fell to the ground?
Adrian Holdstock says it’s cleanly in the gloves! Part of the ball may have been touching the ground as his glove landed on the ground even though it never came out of the glove. Another contentious decision by the TV umpire.
Not everyone buys into Sammy’s suggestion of bias. Here, from the same source, is someone calling himself MpegGuy. The problem, he says, is the imperfect technology.
“The TV umpire should be using uncompressed video because when Mpeg uses motion vectors to predict changes, it will blur the frame when the object is moving quickly. There is also significant errors if the camera moves between frames.
“For a long zoom, even the wind can cause issues.”
Ah! What a relief! There’s a perfectly logical explanation for Holdstock’s errors.
Go tell that to those of us who thought we saw Hope take a clean catch off Head and thought we saw the bottom of the ball hit the ground when Carey took his catch off the West Indies wicketkeeper.
Sorry, eh! Technology, my foot!
I’m not one to rush to accuse umpires of bias. But I am old enough to remember Colin Croft and Fred Goodall and Michael Holding and John Hastie in New Zealand in 1980. And I will never forget a couple of Steve Bucknor’s quite shocking decisions against Sachin Tendulkar.
Photo: Getty Images
I know that in cricket, too, there are none so blind as those who will not see.
So, I sincerely hope the ICC reconsiders its decision to have Holdstock serve as the on-field umpire for the next two Tests in Grenada and Jamaica.
If they decide to stick with him, maybe they will consider giving the WI a handful of extra reviews.
On the evidence we have so far, it seems only fair!
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Earl Best taught cricket, French, football and Spanish at QRC for many years and has written consistently for the Tapia and the Trinidad and Tobago Review since the 1970’s.
He is also a former sports editor at the Trinidad Guardian and the Trinidad Express and is now a senior lecturer in Journalism at COSTAATT.
