LBW Before DRS
Rob Moody has arguably the finest collection of cricket videos on the planet. There may be other collections gathering dust in some broadcaster’s archive, but what makes Moody’s collection both magnificent and unique is his encyclopedic knowledge of it. He can locate a match from 1988 or 1993 in which some incident occurred, because he’s very familiar with the history of the game and its players. (Listen to my podcast conversation with Moody).
He often posts these videos of LBW decisions from back in the days before DRS. Its always fascinating to see these because with todays eyes, we immediately begin to imagine the ball tracker prediction. With Umpires like Bucknor, who stood for 128 Tests, there are bound to be decisions which look doubtful. He’s going to miss the odd inside edge on an LBW. These decisions are described as “shockers” by viewers - a description which reveals more about the cluelessness of the viewer about LBWs than it does about the umpire. Missing an inside edge, or giving an LBW when the ball has hit just outside off stump is literally the smallest possible mistake which can be made in an LBW.
What I find more fascinating when it comes to these LBWs is to notice the patterns in the decisions, because just as it is today, the question of whether or not the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps was a matter of conjecture back them. And so, umpires gave LBW decisions to certain patterns of play. Batting technique developed to counter such patterns of play. This is not dubious. It is empiricism. Here are some of the patterns which are evident.
The bowlers tended to get decisions if:
1. The batter didn’t offer a shot
2. The batter was caught on the crease.
3. The batter was beaten on the inside edge playing forward around off stump.
4. The batter was sweeping from the stumps.
The batters tended to get decisions if:
1. The batter was well forward.
2. The batter was playing a shot
An umpire was more likely to miss an inside edge in the former situation than in the latter. An umpire was more likely to have doubts (see the Arthurton example below) if the batter was not beaten. Arthurton is trying to kick the ball away, but the ball beats his front pad as it turns back towards the stumps. It hits his back pad. (There was an appeal by Ravindra Jadeja against Dawid Malan on the 5th day at The Oval which was similar. The umpire didn’t give it, probably because he thought it was too high). But bowlers (and umpires) always get more interested when they beat the batter.
This idea, that LBW involves the ball beating the bat is central to the LBW. It has receded into the background a bit now that we have DRS. Whether this is for the better or the worse, is a matter of opinion. But it was not an arbitrary proposition. The umpires back in the day were not idiots.
Batters could get unlucky. But, if they got into a “bad” position - got beaten while trying to kick the ball away, got caught on the crease, failed to connect a sweep from the stumps - then they were taking a chance. If the chance didn’t come off, bad luck more likely than it would otherwise be.
In case you are interested, you can read it here. My basic argument is that Umpire's Call exists to define an expert standard for umpires, not to account for doubt. I also show that DRS sometimes gives the benefit of the doubt to the bowler.
https://simon1616.wordpress.com/2021/10/18/who-actually-gets-the-benefit-of-the-doubt/
Hi Kartikeya, I have been reading a lot of your writing on DRS lately as background for my own writing on the topic. As far as I can tell nobody has written as much as you about the fundamental issues it raises and I was wondering if I could send you what I've written.
Kind regards,
Simon Abbott