Sport at the top-level is often decided by the slenderest of margins through a flash of genius or an individual error and sometimes a combination of the two.
If Shane Warne hadn't put down a fairly straightforward chance to repreive Kevin Pietersen at The Oval in 2005, Australia would have gone on to the level the most tumultuous of Ashes encounters and there would have been no urinating in the garden at 10 Downing Street, no flag-waving celebrations in Trafalgar Square and no MBEs.
Instead, Pietersen made the most of his lucky escape to score the most thrilling of maiden Test hundreds and Warne, who had been so magnificent in Australia's defence of the Ashes was left to rue the one that got away. That is how sport should be.
However, when the individual error is down to a match official especially in the rarified atmosphere of a World Cup semi-final then defeat is all the harder to take. The decision of Ireland's half-French referee Alain Rolland to send off Welsh skipper in the 17th minute of a thunderous semi-final on Saturday was just plain wrong.
Even with 14 men, Wales were still by far the superior side. This made Rolland's decision all the more galling. With their inspirational talisman, it is not inconceivable that Wales would have marched onto their first World Cup final by a 15-20 point margin such was the gap between the sides. Instead, a poor French side that was beaten by Tonga and has only performed well in the tournament for 40 minutes against England will fight for the sport's biggest prize next Saturday.
Ironically, Rugby is the sport that pioneered the use of technology to help eradicate human error from its officials. If Rolland had resisted the temptation to make a hasty decision, he could have gone to his touch judges or video referee to consult and consider and most importantly given himself time for the emotion of the incident to die down.
He would have then learnt that although Warburton's tackle appeared to be dangerous on first viewing, the fact that it wasn't malicious nor did the open-side fling Vincent Clerc to the floor with murderous intent meant that the right decision was a penalty to France and at most a yellow card for Warburton.
Rolland should have made use of the technology at his disposal and so should the ICC, whose u-turn on making the use of DRS mandatory was announced last week at the behest of the all-powerful BCCI. Technology is not perfect, because it doesn't capture everything and the final interpretation is still down to a human being, but it does reduce the number of mistakes and this has to be the key point.
Warburton and a nation of dragons would surely agree.
Where next?
The ICC: More U-Turns than Nick Clegg and David Cameron put together
Farewell and a tribute (of sorts) to Shane Warne
Dhoni’s no-ball and the case for or against technology
Eight reasons to love Kevin Pietersen
Check out all our Reverse Sweep cricket heroes and zeroes
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Agree entirely...except for the bit about France playing a good half against England - that was England playing badly rather than France playing well!
The implementation of the UDRS (or DRS which they eventually wanted it known as - even the name wasn't correct to start with!) has been disasterous. That doesn't mean that it's not a vital part of the game moving forwards though. Perhaps an understanding of change management wouldn't go amiss at the ICC - in private business such a bungled attempt to implement something new but inevitable would have seen the departure of those leading the company.
Until cricket administration sets itself higher standards we'll continue going from problem to problem...
Posted by: Ed Lamb | Tuesday, October 18, 2011 at 13:26
You're right Ed, England's effort at the RWC was truly awful if not quite as bad as the ICC's continuing ineptitude. Any more u-turns and a place at the cabinet table in the Coalition government would be their's for the taking!
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