India, Pak players lack discipline

Consistency has always been the level at which teams and players are judged. So, too, if you want to push the point, is technology.

And judging teams such as India and Pakistan in this World Cup, their failures were through poor form and a lack of reliability against lesser teams, which exposed flaws in the system that were player induced and not team management. The fall out is still evident in the Caribbean and India and Pakistan.

It's not so much a case of looking for answers as admitting the players themselves didn't quite have the right mental attitude when it came to playing the games. It was also about underestimating so-called weaker opposition. No one wanted to accept responsibility as do the Australians or Sri Lankans or South Africans.

There is also a matter of discipline and sticking to a game plan. India and Pakistan's poor fielding displayed a lack of accepting responsibility. If players won't listen and learn they won't succeed.

Ireland's elevation to 10th in the limited-overs rankings ahead of a so-called Test nation Zimbabwe is no more than they deserve. They planned and plotted their way into the Super Eights through hard work and self-belief and knowing their limitations.

Yet when it comes to technology, there are as many inconsistent areas as there have always been. From the moment South African umpire Karl Liebenberg pushed the 'dismissal' button at Kingsmead in Durban all those years ago to signal the first Test line dismissal decision, the debate about technology and its use as an aid has been as contentious as any controversial lbw dismissal.

The object of Liebenberg's decision was Sachin Tendulkar in India's first Test against South Africa after the umpire Cyril Mitchley was unsighted and called for a replay. This took more than 30 seconds and the cameras in those days were placed at midwicket.

Not ideal perhaps, but as the technology needed to have fixed line cameras was expensive. There was a South African invention that worked well and from which other technology variations have been developed: hawkeye, snikometre and ball tracking devices as well as an improvement in line decision equipment.

In 2002 when the International Cricket Council decided to use the Champions Trophy in Colombo as an experiment for lbw and caught behind decisions, I asked Malcolm Speed at a media briefing how long would such decisions take. Slowing down the game by utilising such methods to signal a dismissal was not ideal. He agreed.

'The idea is not to hold up the game too long. Certainly no longer than a minute.'

At the end of the tournament, umpires were not too happy how referrals for lbws and catches took something out of the game. In the tight match between South Africa and the West Indies the umpires referred four lbw appeals in the second final over and left West Indies captain Carl Hooper fuming at the delays.

'It's not the way to run high profile games,' he complained. 'For a start, the adrenaline and urgency you feel on the field in such cases was missing.'

The umpires gave the experiment a bad report card and since then there are many who wondered why. The problem is, they forget the comment by Hooper and how often umpires take the safety route in such cases.

Since then, says an acquaintance who is on the umpires Elite panel, technology may have improved, but it is better to trust instincts that faulty technology. If decisions were given according to hawkeye, a Test would be over in three days or less.

While there are those who would doubt this, former England captains Mike Atherton and Nasser Hussain as well as Australian Mark Taylor feel that technology is faulty and has a long way to achieving perfect results. Also the cameras for hawkeye are spaced wide apart on the sightscreen, losing any genuine impact.

Now there are divergent opinions whether the earpiece being used in the Caribbean is a success or a failure. An evaluation will take some time, but there are clear indications in two cases that it is not working.