Ben Stokes attacks 'umpire's call' after 434 runs hammering by India at Rajkot

England captain Ben Stokes feels it’s time to “take away” umpire’s call in the decision review system after Zak Crawley’s controversial second innings dismissal in the third Test against India at Rajkot. The dismissal turned controversial after Crawley, who was trapped LBW by Jasprit Bumrah, took a review and even if the replays showed the ball would have missed the stumps, it was declared as umpires’ call and the frustrated Crawley had to walk back.

It’s, however, difficult to say that Crawley dismissal played a big part in England’s defeat as the visitors were bowled out for just 122, chasing 557-run target, and succumbed to a 434-run thrashing.

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After the defeat, Stokes and England coach Brendon McCullum were seen having a discussion with match referee Jeff Crowe. Revealing the purposes of the discussion, Stokes shared he was informed the images of ball missing the top of leg stump during Crawley’s dismissal was a mistake but Hawk-Eye confirmed that there was enough contact with the stump to uphold the original decision.

“We just wanted some clarity around Zak’s DRS when the images came back. The ball is quite clearly missing the stump on the replay. So when it gets given umpire’s call and the ball’s not actually hitting the stumps, we were a bit bemused. So we just wanted some clarity from the Hawk-Eye guys,” Stokes said.

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“It came back saying the numbers, or whatever it is that is, it was saying that it was hitting the stumps but it was the projection that was wrong. I don’t know what that means. Something’s gone wrong, so, yeah.

“It’s not me blaming that on what’s happened here, like I didn’t last week. It’s just…what’s going on?

Stoked added that Crawley’s controversial dismissal was not the reason behind England’s defeat, but added that umpire’s call element in DRS has to be removed.

“We’ve been on the wrong end of three umpire’s calls this game and that is part of DRS. You’re either on the right side or the wrong side. Unfortunately, we’ve been on the wrong side. I’m not saying and never will say that’s the reason why we’ve lost this game, because 500 is a lot of runs.

“It is not something you pin down to result of the game. Sometimes when you are on the wrong end of those decisions it hurts but that is part of the game. You want them to go your way, sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t

“You just want a level playing field. The umpires have an incredibly hard job as it is, especially in India when the ball is spinning. My personal opinion is if the ball is hitting the stumps, it is hitting the stumps. They should take away ‘umpire’s call’ if I’m being perfectly honest. I don’t want to get too much into it because it sounds like we are moaning and saying that is why we lost the Test match.”

Paul Hawkins, the inventor of Hawk-Eye’s ball-tracking technology, has said that there’s no chance of manipulation.

“There isn’t [even] a one percent chance of it being wrong. For every DRS [incident], we do screen-grabs which show everything the [Hawk-Eye] operator shows. This is automatic, we can’t manipulate it, and that immediately goes to the ICC [the game’s governing body] as part of the quality control process,” Hawkins told the Sunday Times. "

“There are also two independent tracking systems. The cameras are the same, but the operators do their calibrations and the manual bit independently. This provides back-up in the unlikely event that one crashes. Even if there is an lbw shout, let alone a review, the person that plays the review to TV [must check] before anything goes to air that both trajectories give the same result, and are hitting the stumps in the same place.

“It’s not a fully automated system, but a lot is done to eliminate human error by having checks, training and this process of two people doing things independently, [which] has pretty much always been there.”