Refer madness

The mercilessly brief hiatus will soon be over. Referrals are coming back, this time for good. For shame.

Everything is worth trying once except incest and morris dancing, as the old saying has it, and if you don't try something you will never find out whether it works or not. But the referral system has been tried and it's been found to be an ass. In trying to produce results that only operate in black and white, all that's happened is the vast swathes of grey have become vaster. The video umpire has been a boon, especially with stumpings and run outs, and perhaps widening that role is more worthy of attention - for example checking whether a ball pitched in line for lbw decisions - than leaving it in the hands of the players.

The time it takes up is another thing and when it's being used to check on a number eleven's middle stump cartwheeling out of the ground, simply because the batting side have a referral left in the bank, then it goes from irritant to piss-take. In the trials, it hasn't proved to result in better decisions. The arguable ones are largely subject to benefit of the doubt anyway, and where there's any hint of doubt it goes to the batting side, same as it always has. Video replays rarely if ever give conclusive evidence to suggest the initial decision requires overturning, therefore it seems a colossal waste of time and energy.


The continuing debate over the best colour for balls goes on while fines are doubled for slow over rates. Your current correspondent has a real bee in his bonnet about the latter, but fines won't do it, at least not on their own. Ally swingeing fines and suspensions to run penalties. When sides are losing games because of their own indolence, then you'll see them get a shift on.