Wikpedia acknowledges Senaka Weeraratna’s claim

Wikpedia – the Free encyclopedia on the Internet, in its latest article on the Umpire Decision Review System (UDRS) has acknowledged the claim of Sri Lankan lawyer, Senaka Weeraratna, to be recognized as the author of the key elements of the UDRS based on a comprehensive survey done on all aspects of UDRS by Rob Steen, sportswriter and senior lecturer in sports journalism at the University of Brighton, England. The weblink to this article is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umpire_Decision_Review_System

The following excerpts are extracted from this article in Wikpedia:

“The Umpire Decision Review System has also generated controversy in respect to its authorship. Though the ICC maintains that it was a decision taken by the ICC Cricket Committee in 2006 to allow decisions made by an on field umpire to be subject to a process of reviewing, that led to the launching of the UDRS in November 2009, ICC has not been able to identify a single individual by name within the ranks of the ICC as the author of the idea or the point of time of conception of the idea that has brought about such a revolutionary change in both the adjudication process and manner in which the game of cricket is now played in the international arena. The silence of the ICC on the authorship of the concept underlying the UDRS has generated strong claims of authorship with convincing evidence in support from cricket loving individuals located in different parts of the world.

Rob Steen, sportswriter and senior lecturer in sports journalism at the University of Brighton, England, whose books include biographies of Desmond Haynes and David Gower (1995 Cricket Society Literary Award winner),(http://blogs.espncricinfo.com/robslobs/) has in a comprehensive survey of the UDRS entitled ‘Going upstairs: The decision review system – velvet revolution or thin edge of an ethical wedge?’ in the ‘Sport in Society’ Journal (Vol. 14, No. 10, December 2011, 1428–1440), evaluated the pros and cons of these claims. Though he qualifies any categorical statement by saying ‘If the exact origins of the DRS remain cloudy, it was the culmination of a gradual acceptance that umpires needed help’ (page 1430), Steen nevertheless proceeds to name some of the claimants.

Steen identifies Senaka Weeraratna, a Sri Lankan lawyer, as one of the potential authors of the UDRS (page 1431).

He refers to Weeraratna’s claim and says ‘that it was his 1997 letter to ‘The Australian’ newspaper, the first of many, which planted the seeds for what became the DRS’ ( page 1431) and then he says ‘In writing it, illuminatingly, he (Weeraratna) likened the players’ right to challenge umpires to the appeal of a ‘dissatisfied litigant’’(page 1431). He again mentions Weeraratna ‘At Old Trafford three months after Weeraratna sent that first heartfelt letter, Australia’s Greg Blewett was given out to a horribly unstraightforward catch by England’s Nasser Hussain’(page 1432).

Steen also names Duncan Fletcher, India’s current cricket coach, as another claimant deserving credit based on the latter’s initial wide public advocacy of referrals (page 1431).

Attorney Senaka Weeraratna in an exchange of correspondence with the legal division of the ICC has claimed that the acts of the ICC constitute a violation of his moral copyright by failing to attribute the authorship of the UDRS currently being adopted and used by ICC to him and also to his economic copyright by the ICC publicly adopting and using the same without his license. ( Authorship of Umpire Decision Review System: Sri Lankan claims recognition from ICC

http://www.dailynews.lk/2011/03/26/spo30.asp)

Several leading Sri Lankan and Indian sports journalists such as Elmo Rodrigopulle, and Bipin Dani have upheld and backed the claims of Senaka Weeraratna for recognition of his authorship of the ‘player referral’ component - the lynchpin of the UDRS’, in their regular columns.

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