From: mohan@phi.mel.dms.CSIRO.AU (Mohan Krishnamoorthy)
Subject: Re: Excitement and Controversy
Organization: CSIRO, Div. of Mathematics & Statistics, Melbourne, Vic., AUSTRALI
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1992 00:27:08 GMT

In article <9221005.29287@mulga.cs.mu.OZ.AU> kre@cs.mu.oz.au (Robert Elz) writes

>In <27JUL199216185917@vxcrna.cern.ch> hasan@vxcrna.cern.ch  writes:

>|         ... it was a horrendous decision by Palmer.

> No it wasn't.

Yes, it was!  

And we can go on `arguing' thus; backwards and forwards, without it
getting us anywhere...  But then, of course, I guess that is merely _my_
opinion on the issue!!

> Why do people always assume that because they can see that the
> batsmen was out when they view a slow motion replay that the
> umpire has made a mistake.

I am not entirely sure of what Kre is trying to say here.  So, let's
start by trying to define the phrase `an umpiring mistake' in a pure
cricketing sense:

"A batsman is `proven (to be)' out and the umpire gives him not out
          A Type-I error (mistake) by the umpire;

A batsman is `proven (to be)' not out and the umpire gives him out
          A Type-II error (mistake) by the umpire."

The ambiguity in the above definition lies in the term `proven (to be)'. 
Then of course, there is the hidden ambiguity concerning `interpretation',
particularly with reference to lbw's.

It must be made clear that umpire Palmer made a Type-I error, because
the batsman _was_ `proven (to be)' out and Palmer gave him not out.  

I suppose what Kre refers to, when he says the above, is something
(tenuous, woolly and best left undefined) called `allowable mistake'.
However, there can be no discounting the real fact that Palmer goofed.
If we do not recognize this, we will not see real progress in umpiring
standards...

> Remember that batsmen are supposed to be given the benefit of the doubt,
> 2 feet short (and running) gives the umpire very little time to shift
> his attention from the keeper taking the ball and cleanly breaking the
> stumps (remember that the umpire does have to watch that) to where the
> batsman is - there is very likely to be some doubt.

And that is probably a `threshold' for what an `allowable mistake' can
be (and here is the catch) _for Kre_!

> I only got to see this one once, very brifly (it was about all Aus TV
> showed of the match...) and it didn't look to be a bad decision to me.
> Certainly Gooch was out of his ground, but he wasn't a long way out.

I saw the same replay that Kre did (presumably) and I thought it was a
terrible decision.  But then, perhaps _my_ `thresholding' function for
`allowable mistakes' is more stringent than that which Kre `uses'.
Hence, the very subjective nature of such (tenuous) interpretations of
umpiring mistakes.  It is probably because of this rather woolly
definition of the `thresholding' function that umpiring mistakes (and
let there be no doubt about the term `mistakes' here) by different
umpires (Rana Vs Palmer for example) is `seen' and interpreted
differently by different players.

There is only one way that a universally consistent `thresholding'
function can apply, IMO:  

Third-country umpires.

(Please don't refer to them `neutral umpires'.  Umpires are supposed
to be neutral always anyway!).

> kre

/Mohan 

-------
I got 13 channels of sh*t on the TV to choose from  --Waters
-------
Mohan Krishnamoorthy, CSIRO, Division of Mathematics and Statistics,
Private Bag 10, Clayton, Melbourne, VIC 3168, Australia.
Phone: +61 3 542 2263; 	email: mohan@mel.dms.CSIRO.AU
Newsgroups: rec.sport.cricket