ENGLAND have been and gone and Test cricket has yet again shown itself to be the real thing. I've consulted my copyright attorney over their selection of another Captain Cook to lead them in Bangladesh. And the shared series leaves in its wake all kinds of unresolved issues.
Should Graeme Smith have walked when he snicked that one off Sidebottom? The deflection was clear. You could hear the snick on the broadcast. He stood. The umpire, incredibly, gave him not out. England referred to the third umpire and this gentleman, even more incredibly, upheld the not out decision. It seems he'd turned down the sound on his monitoring screen and didn't hear the click. Mama mia!
Everyone says how marvellously this referral system is working, but are we not better off getting the occasional bum decision from the umpire standing out there; living with it and getting on with the game? It was embarrassing, Smith must have known he was out. The referral and replay only amplified the embarrassment. Players should not be put under the kind of pressure there is for them to compromise on sportsmanship.
Besides, the referral system has shown that the umpires are spot-on 99 percent of the time. Is that not good enough for us? Let's rather leave it to the umpires on the field and put up with the occasional dud decision. Use technology by all means – but let it be the umpire himself who calls for it when he's uncertain. Don't put pressure on the players to gyppo things.
Meanwhile, this interregnum of seasons and competitions is the opportunity to look at the laws of rugby. The ELV pilot scheme has thankfully disappeared without trace, ending the nutty proliferation of free kicks instead of scrums, where the kicker, embarrassingly, usually didn't know what to do with the ball he suddenly had to kick somewhere, if only to himself. Those in Australia who championed this change as a step toward abolishing the scrum altogether should either accept reality or go and play Rugby League. It's the scrum that gives structure and space to rugby.
Then there's the suggestion of former Springbok fullback HO de Villiers – a master exponent of the running game – and of Dave Stewart, former Springbok flyhalf, that aimless kicking should be punished by allowing the fielder of such a kick to then kick the ball directly into touch and be given the line-out throw-in where the ball went out. Ball-carriers would have to run with it, not kick
That's an interesting one, and it occasioned lively discussion at the Florida Road Rugby Colloquium. Presumably it would apply only outside of the 25-yard areas. But who's to say what is an aimless kick? What about the up-and-under? Opinion was so divided that last orders were being called at the Filler, with no resolution.
What was decided though was that it's time to end the crazy hypocrisy over the scrum put-in. This needs to be straight – as the laws actually still say it has to be – so that a proportion of tighthead scrums can mean uncertainty of possession and so enliven the game.
All that's needed is for the refs to enforce the law. Let's see it this season! The Colloquium has spoken!
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