UDRS - the S L connection

Cricket Observer

Robert Steen, a well-known English sports journalist, in a recent insightful article on the 'Cricinfo' website under the title 'Will the UDRS be proved a good thing?' refers to the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) as one of the most potentially far-reaching concepts the old game has ever known.

The UDRS has been hailed as the most revolutionary step taken to reform cricket rules since the inception of the game, as the new rule challenges a fundamental premise of traditional cricket i.e. Umpire's decision is final.

Almost all the Test Cricket playing countries bar India have accepted this new System. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has announced that it will use the UDRS based on technology popularly known as "hawkeye" for all the matches of the cricket World Cup 2011. However, the "hot-spot" technology which uses infrared sensors to show whether the ball has hit the bat, pad or glove technology would be used as part of the UDRS only in the two semi-finals and the final of the WC.

First time

This will be the first time UDRS will be used in a major Global event and in one day international cricket.

UDRS has achieved startling results. Accuracy in umpire decisions has gone up from 94 percent to 98 percent ever since its introduction as a new rule in Test Cricket in October 2009. There is much less acrimony between players on the ground. The tension that used to prevail in the past between cricket playing nations on ground of poor umpiring decisions, we hardly see it now. South African Test umpire Rudi Koertzen said in his retiring speech that UDRS should be made mandatory across the world. Cricket has married technology for the better.

While accolades are flowing in for the innovation and beneficial results, there was hardly any discussion in the international media on the question of origin or authorship of the new Rule, until Robert Steen made the following statement in the aforesaid article: " LET'S REWIND to the hotly contested conception of the review system,for which Senaka Weeraratna, a lawyer, believes we must thank/berate him - and not, repeat not, the ICC.

Common sense

He has been arguing for some time, and with some vehemence, that it was his letter to Colombo's Sunday Times, on April 6, 1997, the first of many such that sowed the seeds. In an ocean of common sense, that letter likened the players' right to challenge to the appeal of a "dissatisfied litigant". As Simon Barnes put it recently in the Times: "Referral is not dissent, it is a legitimate process of truth-seeking."

At Old Trafford three months after Senaka's missive was published, Greg Blewett was given out to a horribly un-straightforward catch by Nasser Hussain - for which the available TV replays, foreshortening as they still do, proved inconclusive.

Principle

Shane Warne went beserk; Alan Crompton, Australia's tour manager, dipped into Greek mythology. TV replays were already deployed for line decisions, he noted: how can you half-open Pandora's Box? That it took more than a decade to extend the principle is to be lamented, but better late than never. A decade and a half down the road and the big-screen test is finally here."

Sri Lanka not only produces world class cricketers but also innovative thinkers. Recognition though has been late in coming in respect of the latter. The fact that finality is now no longer granted to an on field umpire's decision is largely due to the letter writing campaign of Sri Lankan cricket reformers like Senaka Weeraratna who believe that player dissent on field should be permitted for a noble cause i.e. to right a wrong.

Weeraratna's claims

Supported by incontrovertible evidence comprising publications in leading international cricket journals and newspapers, Weeraratna has claimed that the use of the third umpire in an appellate capacity with power to entertain direct appeals from a player unhappy with the decision of an on-field umpire is basically his innovation.

Weeraratna further claims that the basic elements of the UDRS have been adopted by the International Cricket Council (ICC) from his ideas which he had conceived with a view to resolving a vexed problem in cricket due to umpiring errors. He seeks official recognition from the ICC for his innovative contribution. "I have publicized this concept by writing to newspapers, magazines and cricket journals both local and international, over a period of time beginning with my letter to the Editor of the 'Australian' newspaper published on the 25th of March, 1997. I have also made written representations to the national cricket controlling authorities of several leading cricket countries including the then Board of Cricket Control in Sri Lanka in 1997, and thereafter Sri Lanka Cricket, offering my proposals as a solution to the tricky problem of umpiring errors that invariably lead to a distortion in the outcome of a game."

Royal College

Weeraratna is a lawyer and an old boy of Royal College, Colombo who had played in school house cricket and been a reserve in the school second eleven cricket team. He obtained his law degree (LL.B.) from the University of Colombo Law Faculty from where he also emerged as a popular undergraduate student leader in the early 1970s.

He won a string of students union elections, becoming initially the Secretary and in the succeeding year the President of the Law Faculty Students' Union, and subsequently he was elected by his peers in the other Faculties as the Vice - President of the Colombo University Students' Council.

Monash University

Upon admission to the Supreme Court as an Attorney - at - Law, Weeraratna proceeded to Australia for his post - graduate studies at Monash University where he read for his Master of Laws (LL.M.) degree. He has served in Australia in a number of capacities such as lecturer in law, Legal Officer (Australian Federal Special Prosecutor's Office), and Solicitor in a reputed Melbourne law firm. He has the distinction of authoring the first legal thesis on foreign investment in Sri Lanka, which he presented as his minor dissertation for his LL.M. degree at Monash University. It has since been published as a book. Weeraratna also played a pioneering role in promoting the establishment of Public Unit Trusts in Sri Lanka in the early 1990s, using his practical experience gained as a trust lawyer in a law firm in Melbourne.

Animal Welfare Bill

Upon returning to Sri Lanka he served as a Legal Consultant to the Law Commission and was closely associated with the drafting of the Animal Welfare Bill.

Appeal to Sri Lanka Cricket

In 2009 Weeraratna made a written appeal to Nishantha Ranatunga, Hony. Secretary, Interim Committee, Sri Lanka Cricket, requesting SLC to intercede on his behalf and more importantly on behalf of his country, Sri Lanka, at the ICC, and obtain due acknowledgement for his authorship of the Rule, as the country would be the biggest beneficiary if the innovation of a Sri Lankan in respect to reform of Cricket Rules, was recognized internationally.

Ranatunga had wanted an affidavit from Upali Dharmadasa who has already acknowledged in a newspaper interview published on June 22, 2008 in the Sunday 'Nation' newspaper that he received the proposal from Weeraratna in 1997 with the request that it be tabled at the next meeting of the ICC scheduled to be held in June 1997. Dharmadasa (the then President of the Board of Cricket Control) had instructed his CEO Tryphon Mirando to study the proposal and submit a report to the Board. Sadly Dharmadasa's term had ended in 1998 and with it Weeraratna's proposal too had come to a grinding halt. This default on the part of the Sri Lanka Board of Cricket Control in 1997 has caused substantial prejudice to Weeraratna's case.

Weeraratna further says that the claim that the UDRS was borrowed from Tennis was untenable because adjudication in Tennis is solely confined to line calls, and does not involve issues related to speculation and judgment, for example, in studying the virtual trajectory of the ball after it strikes the batsman on any part of his body covering the wicket when determining appeals for Leg Before Wicket (LBW). Further, the Instant Replay system to resolve tennis line disputes was first introduced at the US Open in 2006. In contrast Weeraratna had published his writings advocating an appellate role for the Third Umpire as far back as March 1997.

Publication in International Journals and Newspapers

Weeraratna has published his writings in prestigious Journals and Newspapers such as the 'Times of London', Melbourne 'Sunday Age', Pakistan 'Dawn', 'The International Cricketer' (UK) Magazine, 'The Australian' , Malaysian ' New Straits Times', 'Time' Magazine (June 7, 1999), Northern Territory News (Darwin), and several other Sri Lankan Newspapers. In June 1996, Weeraratna was chosen for the best letter of the month published in the reputed 'International Cricketer' (UK) magazine for advocating two neutral umpires as against the then prevailing practice of having one home umpire and one - third country umpire.

The Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) in its Library Bulletin 'Yorker' (December 1998) published two pieces of Weeraratna on Australia - Sri Lanka cricket ties, on the eve of a visit to Australia by the Sri Lanka national cricket team, with a salutary introduction of him as a ' key literary proponent of the Third Umpire'. This description was used by the MCC largely as a result of the increasing recognition Weeraratna was drawing from Australian cricket circles for his letters published in Australian national newspapers, and the novelty of the propositions articulated in lucid language.

Authorship

ICC has left an important issue unresolved i.e. Recognition of authorship. Feeble attempts to source it to instant replay in tennis have been unconvincing and have failed. Neither has the international mass media i.e. western press, with its overarching reach been any helpful in respect to identifying the UDRS true origin and giving due credit to the author of the basic elements underlying the new rules of adjudication.

Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis, two Englishmen, are constantly projected by the international media as having devised the Duckworth Lewis Rule applicable in rain affected one-day matches. This DL Rule comes into play only in limited circumstances. Stuart Robertson, the former Marketing Manager, England and Wales Cricket Board, has been hailed as the founder of the Twenty 20 Cricket format.

Fair play

The reticence of the ICC on the matter of attribution of credit to Senaka Weeraratna is unfortunate. It is contrary to the spirit of cricket which enshrines values of fair play and justice both within and beyond the boundary.

In Sri Lanka too it must be noted that recognition for innovation of this rule has been slow in coming. The saying that the prophet is never honoured in his home country is amply manifest in this context. In another society the likes of Weeraratna given the significance of his contribution towards improving the degree of accuracy in the adjudicatory process of a nation's king sport would have had high celebratory status by now.