Umpiring Technology

As technology becomes ever more involved with the game, its use for mending blatantly wrong decisions by the human umpires is imperative. The stakes get very high with star performers becoming victims of poor decisions. (Un)luckliy such decisions seem to favour the Goliaths of cricket (read Australia) more than the Davids. Obviously personnel from such teams (read Ricky Ponting) always object to such changes. They want the "human element" to stay in the game, no matter how brutally its rare betrayal can cost. That is illogical. With proper rules, technology can only assist in revoking conclusively wrong decisions.

Many international sports today allow challenging the referee/umpire decisions for want of plain justice. There is absolutely nothing wrong in using technology prudently. It only fills in the gaps left by the out-of-reach expectations of the human. While run-outs and stumpings are clearly benefited by technology with the arrival of the 3rd umpire, some other aspects like lbw decisions, (slightly) grounded catches, illegal lines of ball pitch for lbws will also get easily caught and rectified.

The team coach should be empowered to challenge such questionable decisions from umpires for want of sporting justice. The final decision in such cases is made by the 3rd umpire using his judgment and all technology at his disposal (screen freezes, snickometers, hawkeyes etc). However small or large the inherent error in these technological tools, the collective evidence augmented by the umpires intellect will almost always give a just decision.