Umpiring decisions blighted the final Australia-West Indies Test here, but Ricky Ponting said on Tuesday the current system should stay in place in cricket. As far as the Australian skipper is concerned the less technology the better.
The West Indies received three much-debated umpiring decisions in the second innings dismissals of Ramnaresh Sarwan (64), Dwayne Smith (0) and Denesh Ramdin (28) at Adelaide Oval on Monday's fourth day.
The Caribbean tourists did not publicly complain about the calls they got from New Zealander Billy Bowden and Pakistan's Aleem Dar, but both the umpires' decision-making cost the West Indies a chance of making the match far more competitive than a seven-wicket loss.
Ponting said umpiring decisions are part of cricket and he was no advocate of greater use of technology to increase the accuracy of their decision-making through a video umpire sitting next to a television monitor in the stands.
"I have never been a big fan of technology just for the simple fact that the technology that has been used and trialled (by the International Cricket Council) over last few years hasn't been accurate enough anyway to give you conclusive evidence on dismissal," Ponting said.
"It's just part of the game as far as I am concerned. I can't comment on umpires' decisions anyway, but you take the good with the bad. The human element in the game is vital to cricket." Ponting believed the heavy workload on the elite umpiring panel for Tests and one-day internationals needed to be eased.
"One of the major problems might be just the amount of umpiring these guys are doing," he said.
"There's only seven umpires on the international panel. We're always talking about the amount of cricket we are playing, well, someone has to be umpiring those games and if there's only seven there then I'm sure it will be long, hard hours and tours on each of the umpires as well. That's something that can be looked at. "Even speaking to the umpires who officiated in the Super Test in Sydney where the technology was used they didn't approve of it either.
"I think the people we can't leave out of this are the umpires. It's good to get the umpires' views as well. I know they weren't big on the idea.
"The less technology for me, the better." Former Australian Test batsman Mark Waugh is in line with Ponting's views on technology in cricket.
"To my way of thinking we can only use the third umpire for line decisions, stumpings, run-outs and to see if the ball has pitched in line with leg-stump for lbws," he said on commercial radio Tuesday.
"I don't think it can be used for anything else. I think there's still too much doubt. A lot of the time you can't see inside edges. I just think it's still too much of a grey area even using the third umpire."
West Indies skipper Shivnarine Chanderpaul, who had more cause to complain than Ponting, agreed with his Australian counterpart on limiting the use of technology, saying umpiring should be left the way it is.
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