Ricky Ponting Caught in Umpires' Confusion

In the averages all wickets are equal – a Kevin Pietersen equals a Monty Panesar – but in the middle some wickets are more equal than others.

There are key players in every side, who exercise the minds of the strategists beyond everyone else. The problem of Don Bradman preoccupied English cricketers for almost two decades and the only solution they could find endangered one of our treasured colonies.

Ricky Ponting, a candidate for the accolade "the best Australian batsman since Bradman", is the key man in this touring side, the wicket the England players covet beyond everyone else. So his dismissal will be the focal point of any day, especially when it involves three umpires, when there are three possible outcomes to the appeal and when that appeal takes about three minutes to resolve.

The 15th delivery of Ponting's innings was an inswinger from James Anderson. As the Australian captain often does at the start of his innings, his front foot pushed out early and his head fell slightly to the off-side as he tried to make contact. The ball might just have flicked the inside of his bat before brushing that front pad and then proceeding to Andrew Strauss at first slip.

Anderson and those behind the stumps appealed, initially for lbw. Then, recognising further possibilities after Strauss had caught the ball, they expressed interest in the catch. The umpire, Rudi Koertzen, paused; then he cupped his hands as he looked to square-leg and his fellow umpire, Billy Doctrove. Given that Doctrove has a chosen profession as an umpire, he displays a remarkable reluctance to make any decision – he was Darrell Hair's sleeping partner during the controversial Oval Test against Pakistan in 2006 – so it was no great surprise when it became apparent that Doctrove could not help : he could not say whether the ball had carried to slip.

So the matter was referred to the third umpire, Nigel Llong. By now Ponting had to be a worried man. He must have realised that Koertzen had already come to the conclusion that bat had touched ball. He was consulting Llong to check whether Strauss had made a clean catch. It was perfectly obvious that this was the case from the television replay.

But it was almost as obvious that Ponting's bat had not made contact with the ball. Then further inspection revealed that there was a strong case that the Australian captain was in fact lbw from the Anderson delivery.

Koertzen consulted Llong on his walkie-talkie. We must assume that the question he asked was a straightforward "did the ball carry?" – an easy one to answer in this instance. So Koertzen raised his finger and Ponting, thunderous in outlook since he clearly felt that he had not hit the ball, returned to the pavilion, accompanied by sporadic boos.

This episode did little to enhance confidence in Koertzen. He had three options in response to the appeal: not out, out lbw, out caught at slip. He chose the last, which the TV replays suggested was the least likely to be correct. A sort of justice had been reached but for all the wrong reasons.

Would the referral system have helped us today? Neither side showed much enthusiasm for this system before the series. England, after their experiences in the Caribbean, sometimes involving Koertzen, ended up as hostile to the process, which often created more chaos than clarity; the Australians, after their tour to South Africa, were no more than lukewarm.

So much depends on the question asked by the on-field umpire to his colleague in the stands. Today Koertzen could only ask "did it carry?" and Llong was not entitled to say "yes but he didn't hit it". But there is no guarantee that we would have been much better off about Ponting's dismissal after a referral.

Bear in mind that in the Caribbean the benefit of the doubt resided not with the batsman but with the on-field umpire. By that criterion Ponting's fate today would probably have been decided by the initial decision of that on-field umpire even with the referral system, given that incontrovertible evidence is required to change that decision. And, if nothing else, it has surely become clear by now, that there was considerable confusion over the delivery to Ponting. Two things are certain in all this. Firstly Ponting was entitled to be furious about the process leading to Koertzen's decision but not the outcome. Secondly, whatever system is employed needs competent umpires, upstairs and downstairs, to make it work.