There was a moment during last week’s cricket test in Durban that passed relatively free of comment but could have ended up robbing the South African captain Temba Bavuma of a well deserved century.
Vernon Philander, in his role as one of the commentators, saw what I saw - a ball that slipped past the Sri Lankan keeper and ran to the boundary was given as extras by the on-field umpire, but to the naked eye it looked like it might have come off the back of Bavuma’s bat. Sure enough, the replays showed that Philander was right, there was no mistaking it.
I thought of that incident when an hour or so later Bavuma was going through what in his case was the very nervous nineties. Perhaps not having the four attributed to him earlier was on his mind, perhaps not, but when he went down to sweep the ball that took him to three figures and it hit him on the pads to a loud appeal from the Sri Lankans, it was very much on my mind.
Late drama at Hollywoodbets Kings Park 😲
— SuperSport Rugby (@SSRugby) November 30, 2024
A little knock-on chalks off the DHL Stormers try and the Hollywoodbets Sharks hold on for the win 👇#VURC pic.twitter.com/b4yTHF2xes
As it turned out, Bavuma got the faintest of brushes to a glove that was picked up on the replay, but he had an agonising wait to learn his fate. He didn’t look like he knew whether he had touched it or not. In a different era, when there was no technology and no TV umpire, he may well have been given out, for he did look pretty adjacent, and he’d have had no recourse.
It turned out that the on field umpire’s decision was the correct one, but it was understandable that Sri Lanka referred it. Had they been right, Bavuma would have fallen short of his third test century, and yet if you factored in the aforementioned runs attributed as extras, he had in fact already contributed a three figure tally off his bat.
Bavuma probably didn’t care too much at the time that he was denied the four runs to his personal tally for he is the captain of the team, and the runs did go to the team total. The point I am getting to though is that Bavuma couldn’t appeal for the runs to be awarded to him. Had that touch on the ball led to a catch being taken, then it would have been a different story - Sri Lanka would have appealed, and unless my eyes and those of Philander deceived me, he would have been given out.
PERFECTION IS UNOBTAINABLE WITHOUT MAKING EVERYTHING TOO SLOW
This is all pointed out to illustrate how while technology has helped the quest for perfection, there are little glitches that make perfection unobtainable. Test cricket is already held up too much by referrals, many of them by batsmen or fielders who know they are just taking a chance, which is why you very rarely get 90 overs bowled in a day anymore. Having referrals so batsmen can turn leg byes or byes into runs would just slow it down further.
There have to be limits on what television officials rule on, which brings me to what happened a few kilometres down the road from Kingsmead, at Hollywoodbets Kings Park, the following evening in a different sport.
The buildup to what looked like the try to seal a freaky come from behind triumph for the DHL Stormers would have had supporters of both the Stormers and the Sharks on the edge of their seats. When Manie Libbok went over to score in a position that would have made the winning conversion a formality, it reminded me of the surreal feeling that descended on the stadium when Bryan Habana scored the winning try for the Bulls in the 2007 Super Rugby final.
Like this game, that was one that the Sharks thought they had won, but the right to be recognised as the first South African winner in Super Rugby was stolen from under their noses. When Habana went across the line, it sent Bulls supporters into ecstasy and Sharks fans into shock.
TMO MIGHT HAVE RULED OUT HABANA'S FAMOUS TRY
From memory, as well as the big mistake the Sharks made, which was a very young Frans Steyn being allowed to make a rushed failed conversion attempt, there were a myriad mistakes from New Zealand referee Steve Walsh in the buildup to the Habana score.
But 2007 was long before the introduction of TMOs, so when Habana went over that was it. There was no comeback, no replay to be examined with a fine tooth-comb. The joy of Bulls fans was unbridled, for Sharks fans there was utter dejection. It was done.
Dejection and abject disappointment sounds like what Sharks coach John Plumtree, who sat with the then head coach Dick Muir in the Sharks coaching box in that 2007 final, must have felt, because he said afterwards that head-sets were flying around.
In other words Plumtree would not have seen the little knock that at a very early stage of the long buildup to the Libbok try that allowed his team to escape with the win, and I doubt very much there were many others watching the game who saw it either. Had the game ended with Libbok kicking the winning conversion, there wouldn’t have been the same obvious reason for Sharks recriminations against referee Marius van der Westhuizen than there was on Walsh’s role in the 2007 defeat.
The try that the Stormers scored to win the game would have been remembered in a similar way to the famous “try from the end of the world” that sealed a last gasp series win for France over the All Blacks at Eden Park in 1994. That was an historic moment never to be forgotten, but was there maybe a small knock in there that somewhere that should have seen it cancelled out? I don’t know, but there are so many things that a TMO can look for that it is quite possible that in the modern era that try could have ended up being chalked off.
The call against the Stormers wasn’t wrong, what should be asked is how far back a TMO should be asked to go in his search for a mistake. What happens, as was the case with Mike Slemen’s match winning score for the British Lions against a SA Invitation team in Bloemfontein in 1980, when the final move of the game spans several minutes?
The call against the Sharks earlier in the game, the one where Ethan Hooker crossed for what would have been his second try but it was disallowed because of what in my view was a marginal obstruction, wasn’t necessarily wrong either.
JEFF WILSON ASKED A GOOD QUESTION
But while not necessarily wrong, it does bring to mind something said by former All Black wing Jeff Wilson on the New Zealand rugby show, Breakdown, a few weeks ago. Wilson actually asked the question: “Are there too many referees and is it killing the game?”
One of the examples he used was the try the Springboks had disallowed earlier that day in their game against England. The one where Kurt-Lee Arendse crossed a few minutes after the start of the second half but was called back because the TMO felt the pass from Bok fullback Aphelele Fassi was forward. That there was nothing clear and obviously wrong with that pass was illustrated by the fact that not even some of the most acerbic critics of the Boks in the English media agreed with what they regarded as an over-officious TMO decision. The pass was made directly adjacent to the Twickenham press box, so they were in a good position to see for themselves.
The words “clear and obvious”, which really should be the only time that TMOs should be allowed to interject, in other words helping refs avoid the real howler rather than ruling on marginal calls, were heard very clearly from Van der Westhuizen’s lips at an early stage of the second half of the Durban game at the weekend. That was when he was told by the TMO that he had to check whether Stormers wing Suleiman Hartzenberg was ahead of the kicker when he started his acceleration for the try that brought the Stormers back into the game.
CLEAR AND OBVIOUS THAT IT WASN'T CLEAR AND OBVIOUS
It should have been pretty “clear and obvious” to most watchers that Van der Westhuizen was right when he said it was not “clear and obvious”, yet we ended up seeing countless replays before eventually the referee was allowed to stick with his decision.
All of this contributes to what Wilson referred to as “the fun being taken out of the game”, but I am pretty sure the word he really meant to use there was “spontaneity”. Having three referees on the field, which is the case these days as what used to be linesmen or touch judges are now assistant referees and act as such, and then extra people in a television booth watching for errors or indiscretions in a sport which is so overly technical, means there is always a fair chance that when points are scored it will be overturned.
And that is taking sport away from the time when a player diving over the line for a try could be met with an explosion of joy for the supporters of that team or the dramatic feeling of shock for the opposition supporters. Or for that matter the elation of a bowler who gets a batsman out lbw. You have to wait for the TMO, or you have to wait for the referral before you can really celebrate fully. The spontaneity is drained out of the event, and yes Jeff Wilson, who just happens to have been one of the last to have played both international rugby and cricket, by implication so is a lot of the fun.