The Cricketer Magazine – June 2018

Gareth Copley/Getty Ima

Ges

of unanimity from england’s last home
series against pakistan, as they surged
towards a fifth-day victory at edgbaston.
Chris Woakes leads the dance. all four
slips are levitating expectantly; four
fielders, two on each side, are pushing
off with one foot, arms aloft, towards
the umpire. It could hardly be better
choreographed. the crowd has yet to
react: the appeal is action in anticipation
of action, the provisional celebration
of a glimpsed ascendancy. In fact, they
would not: a sliver of wood saved yasir
shah from an lbw verdict. england, wisely,
did not review.
What’s missing, and will be from every

such image, is the noise. Decades of

listening to them have convinced me that

appeals likely to succeed and not sound

quite different. a fielding ensemble

convinced of a breakthrough radiates

excitement, entitlement, heartiness –

they half-own the wicket already, and

the other half is bound to come. one

half-sure but trying it on, by contrast,

has a hint of overkeeness shaded with

desperation; one half-sure but tentative

has a ragged edge. an impact of the

Decision review system has been to

reveal those gradations of certainty more

clearly, but umpires, I think, have always

been subconsciously aware of them.

In the spirit of those wind-tunnel

experiments on bowling swing, cricket

awaits a sound engineer prepared

to identify the characteristics of a

confident appeal likely to be upheld:

integral features, I fancy, would be an

early peaking and a uniform decibel

level, implying a conviction formed

independently by each fielder rather

than the initative of a few that ends up

supported by the many. here, then,

is something that cricket’s greatest

photographers have never quite been

able to capture in all its glory: of the

appeal, the still, mute image can offer

us only the form, not the substance.

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