Line ball

Andy was writing, earlier, about things which make the blood boil and the example was the Wail which had an article, supposedly on Putin's evidence presentation ... they simply weren't interested in presenting it, thus doing great disservice to their readers.

There are other issues which rankle and stay with us forever, not usually of any great world moment but they still remain unresolved and my worst was in Year 4 [or Form 4], in the playground, we were playing cricket, I was the runner, the batsman called me but the fieldsman was swooping to send the ball back, I called no and skipped back to my crease, he was run out at his end as we had not crossed but now he was at my end, in fact past me, claiming we were now crossed.

He refused to go, saying he'd called and had crossed, therefore I was out.  I said no way, we hadn't crossed, besides I'd shouted no. When the fieldsman had hit his stumps up there, he was halfway and I was still in my runner's crease where I'd scampered back. 

So he called over the teacher on duty who happened to be my form teacher [year teacher] and he had not long before given me my first corporal punishment ever, at any school and the only one I'd ever have.  So there was no love lost.

Which was interesting because until then, he'd been the best teacher ever, always with a joke, and I was his star pupil, always 1st or 2nd.  I knew there was trouble the day the weekly reckonings came out and he'd bounced me down to third, which means I lost my seating place.  For one week.  To a girl of all things.  Gail Beaton.

Someone asked me had I left my crease at any stage and I said yes, of course I had, I was backing up. In cricket, that's what one does. 

If I say it was not just because it was happened to me, you'd say yeah yeah, pull the other one.  But if it had been any of our team, I'd have been shirty.  In this case though, it had been my own team mate who'd called the teacher over, the opposition couldn't care less which one was called out ... someone was out, that much was clear.  To all.

You know what that effin' teacher said, don't you?

Fast forward to Sunday afternoon, May 15th,2022.  There's a recommended video or eight about disputed line calls in tennis, wimmin's tennis and the ladies' tantrums are legendary, e.g. this Putintseva, who in one case, even called her own coach over to berate him for not loudly supporting her.  She then told him to get that smirk off his face.  Wonder how long he kept that job.

Anyway, so it went on until the 05:37 mark below, a match between Pliskova and someone:

If it weren't for the bad character of Putintseva, I'd possibly like her more than Pliskova because I don't like tramp stamps on females, however, that's not how this one opened.  

It opened with a repeated, slo-mo camera shot of a ball landing only just inside the line, which became Pliskova's complaint. She'd hit it, she'd said it was in, by my viewing at 05:37 she was right, so what was the issue?

Well, without explaining the next ten minutes fully - see for yourself - the linesperson hadn't seen it, nor had the opponent, nor had the umpire, yet all said it was out.

Whaaaa?

As they say in the video, Plislkova is ordinarily good-tempered but not this time. And I'm afraid I agree. 

Then it was compounded by some of the worst official amateurishness I've seen. If we, the viewers, could see the footage, then why on earth did either the officials or TV station not submit the footage there and then, which would have sealed the deal?  Or even a member of the public?

But no, first came all the pointing at the line - pointless - then all the words - pointless - then out came the referee - pointless because she'd not seen it close up.  

The commentator said the only way was to play the point again.

There's such a thing as accepting an umpire's call - yes - but these clowns had already admitted they'd not seen where it had landed.  To my mind, it was just wrong, the whole thing.

Which pales next to the world injustice taking place right now.  but still ...