Technology in cricket

This is one thing that I always thought of writing about and the latest move in ICL has compelled me even more. ICL has recently started a provison whereby each team gets 3 chances to challenge the umpire decision. When I saw it first time in lawn tennis, I thought it would come in cricket soon. Another thing I think would come up soon is something like football where instead of 11 regular players you have 15 players and you can replace them through the match. So to what extent can it go on? What should be the role of the umpire if everything is decided by technology?

Well I think their should be one side that should be choosen. One group of proponents claim that game of cricket is a great leveler and everything evens out in the end. So allow the umpires to have the maximum control of the game and dont use technology too much. Another thing that is true is if umpires are the sole decision makers then their is always some uncertainty involved and that adds to the charm of the game. But we have seen numerous times sometimes umpires have made horrendous mistakes and thereby have been a point of blame. The second test at Sydney between India and Australia is a case in point. Now lets have a look at the other side of the coin.

Hmmm..So which are the aspects where technology is currently being used. It all started from the use of third umpire to adjudge if a batsman is runout or not.This makes perfect sense as the on-field umpire cannot make out with a naked eye if a batsman is millimetres short of his crease plus the occurences of such instances are not many in a game. Now what after this? Technology has been used recently for helping umpires to take LBW decisions,finding out if the ball has carried to the fielder,finding out if the ball has been knicked by the batsman and some more instances. Now my point is technology is being used to ensure that least mistakes are made and the game is played in most fair manner. Now the paradox here is the umpires use technology when a bowler appeals and they are not able to make a concrete decision. But what about cases where the batsman feels he has been given out incorrectly and when a batsman is out but umpires do not give them out. Is game being played fairly in these cases? Thats where this concept of challenges by ICL fits in which almost eliminates every mistake. Hence if technology has to be used it has to be done for all cases.The flip side to this is that role of umpire gets very limited and for almost every doubt they refer to third umpire thereby delaying the game.

What would I like?Hmmm.. My heart says the older form was better with some uncertainities. However if we have to use technology it has to be done for all the stakeholders not the way we are using it now.