Sports Letter: Fast forward for video

Mr S. Robinson
Thursday 18 February 1993 00:02 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Sir: Henry Blofeld's case 'Time for the video umpire' (12 February) seems to me unanswerable. If, as we often proclaim, the rules are the rules and as such an absolute standard to which all players must conform, why do we so often amend this to 'the rules are whatever you can get away with before a given umpire on a given afternoon'?

Here, as elsewhere, the Americans are 50 years or more ahead of us. A J Liebling, in The Road Back To Paris, mentions a Lt Scholl, USAF, stationed at a World War II airfield in Tunisia: 'He was the fellow who, in the Cornell-Dartmouth football game of 1940, threw the famous fifth-down touchdown pass for Cornell, the one that was completed for what was considered a Cornell victory until movies of the game showed that it shouldn't have been Cornell's ball at all and the decision had to be reversed.'

Perhaps by the end of the century the Test-playing countries could also recognise the existence of photographic or electronic evidence?

Yours faithfully,

SEBASTIAN ROBINSON

Glasgow

12 February

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in