Explained: Was Joe Root unlucky to be given out by DRS?

Umpiring is a tough job in the subcontinent. With spinners in action for a major part of the game, the margin of error is small, bringing in the close-in fielders and repeated LBW appeals. 

The ongoing series between India and England has brought the umpires into play. Plenty of batters have been dismissed on the umpire’s call, leaving both sides unsatisfied with the on-field decisions. Ben Stokes has spoken about removing the umpire’s call. He also questioned the DRS on adjudging Zak Crawley out in the second innings of the Visakhapatnam Test. 

A decision on Day 3 in Ranchi has stirred the pot on social media again. It was an LBW call that went against Joe Root. Ravichandran Ashwin bowled a full delivery around the stumps. Root, trying to caress it into the leg side, missed a straight delivery and was hit on the foot. However, the umpire, Kumar Dharmasena, refused to raise his finger. India reviewed. 

What did the DRS say? 

To start with, the UltraEdge figured out there was no bat, leaving the matter to the Ball Tracker. And that is where the controversy began. 

The Ball Tracker deemed the ball to have pitched in line with the stumps. Naturally, the impact was in line as well, and lastly, there was not much turn on the ball, making it crash into the leg stump. 

Decision overturned.

The controversy struck at the first step of the Ball Tracker. While the tracker considered the ball to be pitching in line, clearly, a significant part of the ball still landed outside the leg stump. 

Hang on!? Shouldn’t it be the umpire’s call since the ball didn’t pitch entirely in line with the stumps? Turns out, the rules are not that straightforward. 

What does the rule say?

The Ball Tracker interprets the pitch of the ball by the position of the centre of the ball. If the centre of the ball is exactly at the edge of the shaded two-dimensional line that runs down the length of the pitch between the two sets of stumps, the decision will go in favour of the bowler.

In Root’s case, the ball landed agonisingly close to the leg stump, and as DRS interpreted it, the centre of the ball was within the line of the leg stump. It is tough to decipher if the centre of the ball landed within the shaded area or at the edge of it, but going by the rules, it definitely didn’t land outside that zone. 

LBW, the only subjective form of dismissal, will not always have things black and white. The following two steps in the Ball Tracking process, the Impact Zone and the Wicket Zone have an element of uncertainty around them. As the broadcasters themselves claim, there is a 2% margin of error in these two steps. Hence, the “umpire’s call” comes into the picture. 

However, the pitching of the ball is a fact that has already occurred in real-time play. 

Root can consider himself a bit unlucky, given a shift of a few millimeters could have saved him. But at the same time, he missed a straight delivery and paid the price.