Steve Smith LBW decision was correct, cricket must move with the times, says Robert Craddock

IF Aleem Dar was a tennis umpire we’d call him a genius. Yes, it was an unusual decision to give Steve Smith out LBW but it was correct, says Robert Craddock. VOTE

Steve Smith was not happy being given out LBW.

IF Aleem Dar was a tennis umpire we might call him a genius but of course this is cricket so we queue up to brand him a fool.

Go figure?

I’ve never seen anything like the LBW decision given against Steve Smith when he was so far down the wicket against South African spinner Keshav Maharaj he was actually closer to Broome than Perth.

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But that does not mean he wasn’t out.

Twitter was full of rubbish saying it was one of the worst decisions of all time.

No it wasn’t. The worst decisions are ones with are proved palpably wrong like a batsman being given out caught behind to a ball he missed by three centimetres.

Steve Smith not happy after being given out LBW.

The technology actually said Smith was out - just - so why should Dar have to hang his head in shame?

If you had just landed in the country from a non-playing cricket nation and had never seen the game before you might even conclude “gee that was a brilliant call by that umpire.’’

You might even compare it to a tennis call when Hawkeye proves that an umpire has made the right call by a matter of millimetres.

But this cricket where old world customs and new fangled technology are still uncomfortable bedfellows.

Cricket has to accept that if you are going to run with new technology you occasionally have to challenge old sayings like “you can’t get given out if you are down the track.’’

Why not? Not now that we have ball tracking devices you either trust the technology or you don’t.

Steve Smith reacts after replays confirm his dismissal.

Keshav Maharaj celebrates the wicket of Steve Smith.

It’s not a bad thing for cricket to have bowlers getting the occasional marginal call.

Goodness knows they suffer enough with flat wickets, heavy bats and short boundaries.

Legendary spinner Bill O’Reilly once said “the rule that gets me is the one which says the batsman always gets the benefit of the doubt … my question is why?’’

It was a question that still remains unanswered even though laws have been made to balance the ledger.

The new technology is changing cricket to the point where swing bowler Terry Alderman, who took 41 and 42 wickets in his two Ashes tours, reckons he would have taken 50-plus on both of them had DRS been available to assist his already plentiful haul of LBWs.

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