No place for human error — or humans? Technology is calling the shots

Have you ever had this nagging feeling that cricket seems to be slowly losing its appeal, or that football is being caught offside time and again with its repeated stoppages during a match? Well … you are not alone.

Over the years, the search for perfection in decision-making has left old-timers like me questioning the need for on — field officials, given how the reliance on technology has repeatedly changed the course of matches. It has understandably caused controversy, besides prompting players to question its efficacy on several occasions.

Take cricket for instance. The introduction of DRS (Decision Review System) has transformed the way the game is played. DRS was first introduced in cricket as a trial during a Test series between Sri Lanka and India in 2008. It was then formally adopted for Test matches in November, 2009. The system was later incorporated into One Day Internationals (ODIs) in 2011 and Twenty20 Internationals (T20Is) in 2017.

Umpire's call during the review

Now here’s the ironic part. DRS, originally introduced to overrule the occasionally wrong umpiring decisions, now makes most decisions with the on-field umpires reduced to just making the initial call and if lucky, getting it right on “umpire’s call” during a review. That has effectively meant that the two on-field umpires end up taking about 10 per cent decisions on their own, a far cry from days when the likes of Dickie Bird, David Shepherd, Steve Bucknor, Simon Taufel, or Rudi Koertzen would lord over the game on the field.

But now, even the umpire is being vilified, meaning cricketers, who never once considered questioning his decision — at best maybe shaking their head if they did not agree with a call as they made their slow, arduous walk back to the pavilion — are now questioning his need on the field!

Take for instance England skipper Ben Stokes’ comments after the second Test loss to India. After a couple of umpire’s calls did not go their way, Stokes said, “My personal opinion is that if the ball’s hitting the stumps, the ball is hitting the stumps. They should take away the umpire’s call, if I’m being perfectly honest.”

What he meant is that let technology decide if a batter is out or not, the on-field umpires be damned.

No line judges

Well, tennis has done away with line judges and the way things are going, soon you might only see the third umpire sitting inside a room filled with gadgets, giving decisions on giant screens.

Now, the stop-start ailment hasn’t affected cricket alone. Football, the free-flowing, 90-minute adrenalin rush has slowly transformed into the sight of a referee having his eyes on the field but ears wired to the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) via an earpiece who tells him when to stop play and run to the sidelines to review a decision by seeing replays on a pitch-side monitor.

VAR, which also utilises goal-line technology Hawk-Eye that’s used in tennis, was first used at the 2018 Fifa Club World Cup. Since then, literally every decision, from goals to offsides to fouls are reviewed before play is allowed to continue.

Now, one might think I am being too harsh on anything AI, but imagine if this technology was available during the 1966 World Cup final between England and Germany, which England won 4-2. The game went into extra time, in which Geoff Hurst scored the controversial ‘Wembley Goal’ in the 101st minute to make the score 3-2 after the first 15 minutes of extra time.

The ball hit the crossbar and bounced back into play, but the referee gave it a goal when it looked like the ball hadn’t crossed the line. Then, fast forward 20 years to Diego Maradona’s ‘Hand of God’ goal against England, one that overshadowed his second goal, which was an absolute piece of art.

Now, both these goals would not have stood in the current set-up, but then, the stories that were told on the back of these controversies would have never seen the light of day either. The passion these moments ignited among supporters and scribes alike, would have been doused prematurely as well.

Just a few days ago, a piece of news caught my eye. The headline read: ‘China hosts first fully autonomous AI robot football match’. Was I surprised? No. Was I horrified? Yes.

Maybe, that is the dystopian future that awaits us. Take the human element out of every sport, make AI and robots part of our everyday life and very soon we won’t bat an eyelid when we see Humanoid robots kick, score and tumble on a football field with humans watching from the stands and applauding.