A stifling hot day ended with England fighting hard after the early loss of Alastair Cook to Friedel de Wet, the new fast bowler, who had the left-hander caught behind for 15. This came after Cook was dropped at third slip off the first ball he faced in Makhaya Ntini's opening over of the innings. The fact that the ball is turning a little already demands that England must at least draw level with, and aim to exceed South Africa's first innings total. Some deliveries, although maybe not as many as expected, also kept rather low and one from Ntini to Jonathan Trott flew from a good length.  Once again the review system was under scrutiny in Centurion |
It may be that South Africa will be as hampered as England by choosing only four frontline bowlers in these very hot conditions. Graeme Swann was left to do most of the bowling and responded very well to take 5-110 from 45.2 overs. He might have had a sixth had technology not ruled against him when he appeared to have Morne Morkel plumb lbw from round the wicket. Umpire Steve Davis gave Morkel out, and it seemed only because the South Africans had their reviews in reserve that, after a consultation with his partner, the batsman decided to challenge the decision. The replay showed that the ball did everything right in that it pitched wicket to wicket, turned and hit the batsman directly in front of the wicket. Then, Hawk-Eye delivered its prediction that the ball would have passed over the stumps by literally a fraction of an inch.  | 606: DEBATE |
Davis was forced to reverse his entirely reasonable decision, and presumably this will be marked down as an error as a result. The system is supposed to remove the glaring mistake, and had South Africa already used their reviews Morkel would have walked off entirely satisfied that he had received a fair decision. Currently, there is a zone of uncertainty that gives the system a margin of error within the virtual stumps. If we are to use technology, I would rather see the umpires have this zone of common sense, if you like, that extends the height of the virtual wicket you see on the TV, and the width of the off stump by one centimetre. This would help keep their integrity intact and help remove criticism of the system. It is also important that the crowd in the ground is able to see the review taking place on the big screen. Currently, nothing is shown during the process leaving those who have paid good money to watch the game entirely ignorant of what is going on.
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