Martin Crowe delivers 2006 Cowdrey Lecture

Macstorm, the lecture is fine, but why is he raking up the Murali issue again? I agree the 15-degree rule is flawed because it leaves too much room for debate, but Murali seems to have become the favourite whipping boy of many people for no fault of his own. You can’t keep asking him to justify his action and then clearing him.

No Bhajji, the point isn’t that. Crowe is clearly unhappy with the way Murali has been cleared. But yes, he could as well have mentioned Shoaib Akhtar and Harbhajan Singh.

Doesn’t Shoaib have a physical defect that forces him to bend his arm at an unnatural angle? If Crowe had his way, a lot of bowlers would probably have to stop playing.

And it also seems unfair on current cricketers to penalize them for chucking, when bowlers throughout the years have chucked at one time or another. Personally, I’m not in favour of reducing everything in cricket to a technicality. Technology in limited doses is a good thing, but it can also kill the spirit of the game.

How do you decide how much technology you want to use? ‘Limited doses’ is a relative term Safehands. A lot of people may argue that such technological additions as the Snickometer and Hawkeye will make umpires redundant, but they have come to be an irreversible part of international cricket. My view is, if you want technology, you have to go the whole hog, or keep the game relatively technology-free, like football and rugby.

I don’t think you are getting the idea behind Crowe’s lecture. He is saying the same thing as Safehands, basically. He is against the use of Hawkeye to predict the path of the ball once the umpire has made his decision, so he is certainly not seeking to make them redundant. Also, he is saying that all countries should make the same use of Hawkeye. Refer to this remark: “Overall, in my view, umpires still have the best view; they see and hear everything in real time and they see everything as three-dimensional. The best umpires have an enhanced sense of sight, [and] sound, and an instinctive feel for the game. The best umpires have the nerve, the concentration, the experience and knowledge and - especially if they have been former players - they have the instinctive ability to make the right call under the severest of pressures.”