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EDIT: As some have pointed out, Harper could be for as well, but when in charge of 3rd umpire duties, he is against, way against.
cricket with balls
just another bullshit cricket blog
Tagged with daryl harper …
The CWB Interview: Daryl Harper
Being conscientious types, we at CWB feed don’t spend our rain breaks sat on the sofa doing nothing. Oh no. We use the time to get to the heart of the day’s issues. Which is why we worked our collective nuts off to secure an interview with Daryl Harper:
CWB: So, Daryl, tell us about that Smith decision
Harper: Hello?
CWB: How does it feel to have committed one of the biggest cock-ups in umpiring history?
Harper: Is there anyone there?
CWB: Can you hear us?
Harper: Oi, lackey, I thought you said those cunts from Cricket With Balls were on the line?
CWB: We are! Can you hear us.
Harper: Well, I’m not sitting here with this stupid headset on all day, I’ve got cake to eat.
CWB: Daryl, you thick git, turn the volume up!
Harper: Nope, still can’t hear anyone.
CWB: Turn. The. Volume. Up.
Harper: No-one there. Right…
CWB: TURN THE VOLUME UP!
Harper:…I’m off to see how many sandwiches you can stuff into Steve Davis before he explodes.
CWB: Oh, for fucks sake…
administracrats fail, again
When a cricketer walks down the wicket slogging in a crucial game there is a chance that if he misses it he will be out of this game, and perhaps out of the next one.
Cricket, and all sport, is tough like that.
You can be selected on performance, and de-selected on performance.
Cricket Administracrats do not have to worry about this.
They can fuck up for years without fear of demotion.
Even if their error has something to do with their side losing.
Look at the latest fuck up, Imran Tahir, the luscious leggie who is so cool we refuse to bag his alice band. Mostly.
South Africa lucked into this world-class leg spinner because the dude loves to travel and found himself a wife in their country.
In April 09 he said he was qualified to play for South Africa.
No one questioned it.
Before that he had played in a Presidents XI match against Australia, so he was clearly a chance of international honours.
Then almost a year later he is supposedly qualified and gets picked for a squad when South Africa really need an attacking bowler to help them win, but instead they can’t pick him because he is not yet a permanent resident. Surely something some official should have known before calling him into the squad.
If South Africa trusted that he was qualified in April 09, why did no one check then on the off chance he might be required?
At best it makes CSA look like a bunch of idiots who have shown that they don’t believe in their spinner but have no other player to replace him. At worst this could cost South Africa the series against England.
There is more though, because it seems that Tahir just doesn’t understand the rules, he thinks that he qualifies because it is four years since he played for Pakistan A, and now is only missing out because of paperwork.
That is not how the system works, as the Times points out (and I have read up on this boring shit before), you need to have lived in the country you wish to represent for at least 180 nights a year for four years. The times doesn’t think Tahir has, and I have my doubts too.
While these errors were also Tahir’s, someone at CSA should have checked all this out at least two years ago when he was obviously trying to qualify.
And this isn’t some one off. Azeem Rafiq cost Yorkshire points when the played him when he didn’t have a UK passport. Darren “Eyelids” Pattinson played a couple of seasons for Victoria before playing for England, but technically he should have played all his games for Victoria as an overseas player before that, just no one noticed. Surrey also did a great one when for the 08 season they tried to get Shoaib in for the last four games so they wouldn’t get relegated, by no one checked Shoaib’s visa so he only ended up arriving for the last two games.
Not that it mattered. He looked shit anyway.
All of these, and there are probably heaps more, have either cost teams or could have cost teams on the field.
I wonder how many people were demoted or fired over it?
Ofcourse the ICC are experts at this kind of fuck up. How often does an umpire or match referee get refused entry in a country due to visa problems?
But we know that no one gets fired from the ICC, how else would you explain Daryl Harper.
Has anyone even checked if Brendan Nash is Jamaican? Or did he just rock up with a Marley T-shirt and say I’m one of you, gimme a game?
Could Daryl Harper save your life?
Let us imagine you are a baby-eating dog-killing nun-raping dude or dudette who gets caught with the brains of your victims in the fridge by an off duty police officer.
The trial is clear cut, and your defence tries its best, but brains in the fridge is not easily explained.
In normal life you’d be a goner.
But you live in a magical cricket world.
And thankfully you can review your sentence.
You choose a good day, as Daryl Harper is reviewing murders. He takes a look at the evidence, which he finds unconvincing. Then he looks at your motive, which he dismisses. Finally he looks at the judge and jury’s verdict, and makes his decision.
Daryl decides that if he was in the jury he wouldn’t have found you guilty, and he over turns the decision.
You are happy, you feel vindicated and go back to your baby-eating dog-killing nun-raping times, and hope that if you get caught again Daryl will be in the review seat.
Daryl Harper’s decision gets a lot of media attention, but nothing happens.
And the next week a murderer is found not guilty due to the lack of any evidence or motive. Daryl finds her guilty.
That gets a lot of attention too, but nothing happens.
Helmets for Umpires
Daryl Harper, Bob Willis’ favourite umpire, has said that with bigger bats and twenty20 cricket taking over umpires are now in danger of getting hit more, and should be given helmets.
Bullshit.
If you get hit as an umpire, you should be fired.
Any umpire who hasn’t the eyesight or agility to get out of the way of a ball that is being sent from 22 yards is perhaps in the wrong line of work.
That is the ultimate test.
In the IPL the other day an umpire at square leg got hit in the hip.
The dude was clearly having a kip.
For an umpire like Dayrl Harper, a head injury might emprove his performance.
If it is broke, keep using it
The referral system is a flawed concept.
It doesn’t stop mistakes being made.
The players don’t like it, Sarwan bagged the system after it saved him.
When used by an umpire of limited skill it still makes mistakes, yes you Daryl.
And it doesn’t use enough of the technology.
It simply does not work effectively to be used.
It is the equivalent of throwing monkeys at an incoming tsunami.
Today i saw it’s three main problems.
Referral 1 the lack of other technology
Mark Boucher comes to the crease after a wicket. gets beaten by a peach of a jaffa of a top nut. Australia think he has edged it, they all go up. He is given out, and before the finger reaches the sky he is doing that grotesque bastketball signal. The third umpire sees the foot, legal delivery. He then sees 2 or three angles of the Boucher dismissal. One shows that he may not have hit it, the others show that it is too close to call. None of them showing him edging it. The umpire then has to make his decision, without a visable gap betwwen bat and ball he cannot overturn the decision. So he doesn’t.
Solution: snicko and hotspot are two technologies that could have helped the umpire here. If they couldn’t resolve it, then Boucher could still have been given out. A batsman does not know if he has missed a ball by a millimetre or sandwich width. He just knows he hasn’t hit it, and refers it.
Referral 2 judgement calls
Andrew McDonald is trying to make his way in international cricket. He hits AB on the pad, dead in front, plumb as you’d like, not out. Australia refer it, incorrectly. Because there is nothing the umpire can do in this situation, he cannot say 100% that the ball is going on hit the stumps, who can. The umpire has no grounds to change the decision.
Solution: Why can’t the umpire say to the 3rd umpire, based on what you can see, would you give it out. It really isnt that hard, he has the slowmo, he has the non predictive hawkeye, he has a few angles.
Referral 3 the umpire isn’t allowed to umpire
Shiv leaves a ball from Anderson, it strikes him on the top of the pad flap. It is given. He refers it. On the replay the hawkeye stops as the ball hits him, it is already at bail height, with half the ball above and half below. After a short while Daryl Harper decides it cannot be overturned.
Solution: Had Harper been asked to make a decision of whether the ball was going to hit the stumps, he probably would have said no. Instead he was asked if the umpire had made an obvious error. The ball was right on the line of the bails when it hit him. It was not an obvious error, even though if it was an obvious error. Harper’s decision was that this was not obvious as the ball had yet not cleared the bails, to anyone who understands cricket, obviously this excludes Daryl Harper, it was obviously a mistake and should have been over ruled.
This all happened on one day.
All three errors allowed to occur because of a flawed system.
Although Daryl Harper could ruin a perfect system as well.
The system doesn’t work, and these three cases are not even the most perfet examples. I am sure there are more out there that show the inadequiecies of this system.
Daryl Harper has been the biggest problem the referrals has, but S Sport in South Africa made a play for that crown today, when due to technical hitches or some such shit, they couldn’t even show the 3rd umpire the replay.
I was just about to post this, and Harper made another monumental cockfuckup.
The exact same sort of decision which was not over turned for Andrew McDonald, was referred by England, by the letter of the law it could not be overturne, Harper over turned it. When the predictive hawkeye was shown, the ball was going over the top.
Harper basically made two mistakes, but spectaculary, two mistakes that contradicted each other.
Is there any end to his talent.
