Leading Article: The old ways aren't always best, not even in cricket

rejoice! rejoice! For after the high-powered whirligig of World Cup football, an England team has won something. Soothingly it is the cricket. So now, as with any important national event, there will, naturally, be a post-match deconstruction. The issue of the moment is umpires and technology.

There is a problem with umpiring in international cricket; six batsmen were "fingered" by the umpires at Headingley alone in the final and decisive test of the series against South Africa. The television cameras revealed that, although they were given out, there was in every case clearly considerable doubt.

It boiled down to the usual human fallibility, attenuated in this case by the fact that one of the unfortunate umpires - one Javed Akhtar - has not had much recent practice, having been flown in from Pakistan. Even umpires need to practise, the argument goes, and when the far-flung nature of international cricket makes this difficult, why not accept a little help from technology?

So the question is: should we have closed-circuit television cameras at cricket grounds, a team of etiolated helpers in a darkened room somewhere and an ear-piece for the umpire? At first glance the answer seems clear. Even the English are no longer a nation of proud amateurs, and their attitude to sport should reflect their new-found professionalism. If the ref is blind, to coin a phrase, then give him a pair of glasses. Train a camera on the ball. No harm done.

After all, there is already technology available to prove certain things in cricket beyond reasonable doubt. A camera on the bails provides novelty angles for viewing batsmen shuffling around at the crease. And lenses are in position to provide replays crucial in adjudicating run-out decisions. There are even microphones under some pitches to detect the sound of ball against stump. So what would all the fuss be about?

Other sports have survived the onset of a technological dawn perfectly well. Horse racing, track events in athletics and tennis are the obvious examples. And, unlike football, cricket is a bit of a stop-start game anyway, so it's unlikely that the flow of the game would be fatally interrupted by the wait for a verdict. The pause after a "howzat?" might be a couple of beats longer; but surely all that would cause is heightened anticipation and, therefore, greater catharsis when the answer comes: the game might even become more dramatic.

But perhaps the example of tennis underlines a crucial difference between cricket and other sports. Tennis is highly competitive - even gladiatorial - and the large sums of money won by its single combatants emphasise the extent to which its mysticism has disappeared in recent years as its stars have become teen pin-ups. Is there not something about cricket - its pace, team ethos and aesthetic - which is unique and which makes it uniquely incompatible with change?

One might argue that it is patently untrue that the camera never lies and, therefore, we might do as well to embrace the organic judgement of the largely sensible individuals known as umpires as anything else. People have a reassuring kind of olde worlde authenticity to them when placed by the side of a tricksy camera, which can always go wrong anyway.

Also, it would clearly not be possible to have cameras on every village green, and part of the mellow beauty of the thump of leather on willow is that the game is universal - from beaches in Barbados to the village green at Greenham everyone needs basically the same equipment: a bat and ball.

And - think on this - wouldn't it be boring if there was no umpire to curse? A whole dimension of post-match commentary, not to mention enjoyable whinging in the newspapers, would be denied the nation. So. Cameras it is, then.