That's out! How expert umpires make leg-before-wicket judgements in cricket

Joshua M Adie; Ian Renshaw; Scott Russell; Remco Polman; David L. Mann

doi:10.1080/02640414.2024.2338024

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That's out! How expert umpires make leg-before-wicket judgements in cricket

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

That's out! How expert umpires make leg-before-wicket judgements in cricket

Joshua M Adie, Ian Renshaw, Scott Russell, Remco Polman and David L. Mann

Journal of Sports Sciences, Vol.42(5), pp.455-464

2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/02640414.2024.2338024

PMID: 38630902

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Abstract

decision-making

expertise

referees

Sports officiating

Despite evidence that elite-level cricket umpires are highly accurate in making leg-before-wicket (LBW) judgements, there is limited understanding as to how they make these judgements. In this study, we explored the explicit LBW decision-making expertise of elite-level cricket umpires (N = 10) via 10 individual semi-structured interviews. Using thematic analysis, we aimed to identify the sources of information that umpires incorporate into their decision-making process. Results indicated that umpires engage in intentional pre-delivery information-gathering to guide their expectations, and to set context-specific parameters as to what would constitute an LBW dismissal. Not only do umpires use information about the ball trajectory, but they also use additional information about the condition of the pitch, the action-capabilities and susceptibilities of players, and the unique requirements of different match formats. Umpires reported employing a gaze-anchor strategy when gathering information for each delivery and described the process of this information as initially intuitive, before engaging in deeper post-hoc reasoning. Findings highlight the importance of including contextual information when exploring officials’ decisions and may inform future training interventions for cricket umpires.

Details

Title: That's out! How expert umpires make leg-before-wicket judgements in cricket
Authors: Joshua M Adie (Corresponding Author) - University of Southern Queensland
Ian Renshaw - Queensland University of Technology
Scott Russell - Queensland University of Technology
Remco Polman - Federation University
David L. Mann - Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Publication details: Journal of Sports Sciences, Vol.42(5), pp.455-464
Publisher: Routledge
Date published: 2024
DOI: 10.1080/02640414.2024.2338024
ISSN: 1466-447X; 0264-0414
PMID: 38630902
Copyright note: © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Organisation Unit: School of Health - Psychology
Language: English
Record Identifier: 991098746102621
Output Type: Journal article

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Web Of Science research areas: Sport Sciences