Tony Becca

THE DLF Cup is now history, after scoring 240 for six and routing the opposition for 113, Australia whipped the West Indies in the final and, with Australia being the World Cup champions and the number one ranked team in the world, with the West Indies, at the time, the number seven-ranked team in the world, that was that.

Had cricket been a different game, however, had it been a game in which every effort was made to ensure justice - the kind of justice that would see to it that a man who was out according to the rules was out and that a man who was not out according to the rules was not out, the Cup, despite the odds against it, may not have ended up in Australia's hands.

The loss, by 127 runs, was a huge margin - no question about that and the way the West Indies had been batting up to then, the fact that when Brian Lara was dismissed, or rather when he was ruled out, the score was 32 for four, the odds were against them winning the match.

Most dangerous batsman

The facts, however, are that Chris Gayle is one of the most dangerous batsmen in the world, that Lara is arguably the best batsman in the world, that any of them was capable of winning the match for the West Indies and that both batsmen were given out when, according to the rules of the game, they were not out.

One of the rules of the game states that, except for a run out, a batsman cannot be out off a no-ball and, in the case of Gayle, he was ruled out leg before wicket first ball by umpire Asad Rauf when he was hit on his boot by a no-ball from Brett Lee.

As good as the delivery appeared to be - fast, straight, full, low, swinging in to the left-hander and heading for the middle stump, Lee's front foot landed an inch or two beyond the popping crease.

Ball and bat

Another one of the rules of the game states that a batsman is out caught only if the ball touches the bat and, in the case of Lara, ruled out caught by the wicketkeeper off left-arm pacer Nathan Bracken by umpire Mark Benson, the ball did not touch the bat.

In one innings the umpires made two mistakes, the batsmen and their team suffered, and in this day and age of technology, in this day and age of professional sport, that should not happen.

Technology is such that the television camera can pick up anything - or almost anything.

The television camera can tell where a bowler's foot landed, it can tell whether the ball touched the bat or not, it can tell whether a catch is taken or not, it can tell whether the ball went over the boundary or not. It can also tell if the fielder touched the boundary while touching the ball, it can tell whether the bat is over the crease or not before the wicket is broken, and while it cannot, at least not yet, tell whether a batsman is out leg before wicket or not, it can assist the umpire to make a decision based on the rules by showing whether the ball pitched outside the leg-stump or not and whether or not the batsman was hit outside the line of the off-stump.

It seems strange that the television camera is used to solve some of the above but not all of them.

Whatever the reason may be, it is high time cricket moves with the times and protects its rules and its laws by using, wherever possible, technology.

Again one of the laws of the game states that unless he is run out, a batsman cannot be out off a no-ball. That means that if batsmen keep getting out off no-balls - and that is a regular occurrence, then something must be done to rectify it.

Whether the umpires like it or not, the way to do so is through technology.

Shying away

It is strange that while more and more professional sports are getting into technology, cricket is shying away from it. By shying away from it, however, they are hurting the game - for the simple reason, for example, that when a man is not out and is given out, when he goes into the field he is going to try to get the umpire to give a man out when he is not out.

Cricket is hurting, and it is hurting because of the administrators - the same administrators who condemn chucking as one of the sins of the game but who, instead of banning them, are making it possible for chuckers to stay in the game.