KEY POINTS:
Mathematics and sports journalism aren't easy bedfellows: we'll take vagary and supposition over exactitude any day.
So when we learn that Hawk-Eye has made its debut at Wimbledon this year and can make one billion calculations on each line call, the natural reaction is to say "gosh, that's
a lot" and move on.
But it deserves closer analysis. Maths, that dryest of subjects, is revolutionising sport and those that don't act quickly are sports that will soon look as relevant as horseback archery.
Hawk-Eye, the brainchild of Paul Hawkins, a man whose very real intelligence is channelled into artificial intelligence, has changed sport irrevocably. Its calculations have proven to be accurate beyond reproach. It has made other gadgets look like, well, gadgets.
In tennis, before Hawk-Eye, there was Cyclops, which used infrared beams to determine whether serves were in or out. Cyclops is now in exile on Wimbledon's outer courts, where the tennis proletariat ply their trade, while superstars like Federer and Henin-sans-Hardenne lord it on the stadium courts.
Cyclops had its detractors. Ilie Nastase, the clown of centre court, when unhappy with a call would drop to his knees, peer into the machine and ask it if it was made in Russia, much to the amusement of everyone in the crowd not named Ivan.
Nastase would have mocked Hawk-Eye as well but there's about a billionth of a chance he would have won that argument.
Sports poets and romantics decry the ever-increasing creep of technology. Its human element must never be lost is their catch-cry.
It is a hollow argument. Sport will always have a 'human' element. It will always have elements of luck and chance. But surely most would agree it is desirable to take the luck and chance element away from adjudication. Those who talk about the beauty of the 'human element' are not normally the ones who have been on the wrong end of umpires' mistakes, honest or otherwise.
Tennis was quick to realise this; cricket has been tardy. That's inexcusable given that Hawk-Eye got its breakthrough in cricket, when UK broadcaster Channel Four used the technology as a brilliantly innovative television tool.
Tennis realised the potential and took it further, choosing to use it to rule on line calls - should the call be challenged by a player - in its most prestigious tournaments, including starch-collared Wimbledon. Its presence has been almost universally welcomed.
Which makes you wonder why cricket hasn't done the same. The technology is there. It gets it right. It takes a minimum of time. Everybody walks away happy. Right?
Not exactly. Hawk-Eye still has some vociferous opponents.
"Some of Channel Nine's graphics regarding where the ball supposedly lands and travels after it bounces are an insult to one's intelligence," wailed legendary fast bowler Dennis Lillee recently. "[Commentators] know full well that every ball does not continue through at the predicted height."
But it is not 'predicted', it is calculated. There's a world of difference.
How will cricket become a worse game for using Hawk-Eye to adjudicate on disputed LBW shouts, or Snicko on caught behinds? The answer is it won't, just as tennis has not become a worse spectacle because of the electronic intrusion. Frivolous challenges, if appropriately penalised, will soon be eliminated.
Cricket will benefit. Headlines the next day would exclusively focus on the players' fallibilities, not the poor sap in the long white coat.
Recently there has been loose talk over the years that some umpires are inherently racist against Subcontinental teams. Hawk-Eye doesn't discriminate on skin colour.
Now if only Hawkins could work out a system for the breakdown at rugby.
It's been another great week in boxing's pot-holed history.
First Kelvin Davis, Shane Cameron's scheduled opponent, discovered he was actually made of flesh and bone rather than 'Koncrete' when his 'training run' took a detour off Greenhithe Bridge. Then on Wednesday night, Monty Betham was stood up by his date Hector Lombardi, when the American was barred on medical grounds.
Cameron duly destroyed his 11th-hour patsy opponent on Thursday but the real scene stealer was the 'fighter' before the main event who our photographer described as "having bigger boobs than Lolo Ferrari". (We will pause while you Google.)
It says a lot about Dean Lonergan's marketing charms that he can fill a venue for slapstick.
