The week in sport
Shortsighted HawkEye, misshapen cricket balls, Don Revie and the FA, retro footy tops, book recommendations.
In the chalk dust v Hawk-Eye battle, says Ed Warner in his SportInc Substack, there can only be one winner. Traditionalists may hanker after a Wimbledon of line judges, temper tantrums, smashed rackets and John McEnroe questioning the seriousness of the umpire, but in tennis as in all sports technology’s march is unstoppable.
It is ironic that the first of two controversial Hawk-Eye incidents (Pavlyuchenkova v Kartal) was the result of human error. After all, the whole point of the exercise is to eliminate human frailty. Someone, though, needs to ensure the on switch is always depressed. The second (Fritz v Khachanov) also involved human interference. This time the inadvertent movement of a BBG - ’ball boy or girl’ for those of you not up with your tennis acronyms.
That’s two cock-ups in, so far, ten days of tennis across 18 courts. Last year there were 104,863 strokes played on the show courts alone in the fortnight of competition. Players want accuracy. Technology delivers it, provided operators aren’t asleep at the controls and BBG shuttles are accurately scoped by the techies.
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In an interview with the Mumbai Mirror, owner of cricket ball maker Dukes, Dilip Jajodia, rebutted criticism of his product and suggested the International Cricket Council consider changing balls earlier than the current marker of 80 overs. “Everyone is blaming the ball. When players get ducks, it’s the pitch. When bowlers don’t get wickets, it’s the ball,” he said. “The ball is supposed to deteriorate; it’s not a rock. Maybe the game’s authorities should consider allowing the new ball to be taken somewhere between the 60th and 70th over.”
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Here are our sports book recommendations for the summer…lots to read on your summer hols.
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Now in the Pitch shop - classic retro t-shirts. It’s the perfect summer look!
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On this weekend in 1977, England football manager Don Revie uses the press to advertise the fact that he is resigning as manager of England and will be taking over as manager of the United Arab Emirates. The FA immediately suspended Revie for ten years on a charge of bringing the game into disrepute. Revie decided to contest this through the courts and won, after the judge found that the FA had overreached its powers.