Sports today doesn’t mean you simply run around scoring goals or taking wickets. It’s become a lot more competitive nowadays, especially when we see prodigies in different forms of sport. And in such times, wrong decisions mean everything to a game. While it might sound old now, but how many of us actually liked Ian Bell’s LBW decision? And speaking of World Cups, remember seeing the England VS Germany football match last year at the 2010 FIFA World Cup? If you jump to the 4-1 score-line, it looks quite obvious that Germany would have won against a rather run-down English attack anyways. But football has seen some of the most dramatic upsets where teams come back from 2 goals down to win the match 3-2! Plus, Frank Lampard deserved that goal.

There are many such instances of goals not being awarded and some more where the scorer was clearly offside. I’m talking about Carlos Tevez’s goal against Mexico and if you look back at replays, the Argentine striker stands probably a mile away from the nearest Mexican defender. Had FIFA’s president Sepp Blatter agreed to implement some technology, such horrendous mistakes could have easily been avoided. One of the proposed systems is the goal-line technology where an indication is made whether the ball has crossed the goal line or not. So if the ball has crossed the goal-line but still deflects away from the crossbar, as per a technical scenario that goal is counted. Similarly, if referees are allowed to take a look at video previews rather than just make a possibly "hasty" decision, the game could be becomes a bit fairer.

Howzzat?! Waddya mean NO!

Coming back to cricket, it’s obviously known that ICC still doesn’t want to utilize the Hawk-Eye technology which doles out decisions a lot more accurate than a human umpire. I understand some umpiring is just plain bad, but there are some decisions which cannot rely completely upon the human eye! You need to take a look as to how the ball is pitched, at what angle and speed it's traveling at etc. to to come out with the correct decision.

I’m completely with these governing bodies that sports will not be the same after implementing technology. But wait, doesn’t that apply to so many other aspects of our lives? If not for technology we wouldn’t be using vehicles for transport, computers for education or mobile phones for communication! The fact is, when you have the facility, why not use it. Yes, it wasn’t around five decades ago and there might be so many such decisions which went wrong.

It's in, it's in... Or wait

At the same time, I wouldn’t want mechanized bats or football studs to help players play. For me, that would actually take the fun out of the game. Sure you might dream or wish for 10 Sachin-like batsmen in your team, or maybe Ian Wright-like footballers in your club, but won’t that make it a tad boring?

One sided matches, although attract some 'oohs' and 'aahs' from the spectators when it comes to some record, are okay but the best matches are where both sides are equally deserving. I loved the high-scoring Australia-South Africa cricket game where a total of 872 runs were scored, with S. Africa scoring the winning runs in the penultimate delivery with only a wicket to spare! Or wait, there was also the famous India-Pakistan T20 world cup match in 2007, where Sreesanth took the important catch in the fourth delivery of the final over! Football has seen about a few hundreds of such matches like the Liverpool VS Arsenal at Anfield where Arsenal had to win by two goals to take the title home, which Michael Thomas did by way of a 92nd minute winner!

Let’s not drift away now, those were some good matches nevertheless but the point here is FIFA and ICC should agree to use technology in sports. The supporters are up for it and even the players are up for it, which simply makes it ludicrous to not use it. The latest I’ve heard is that the Goal-line technology might be tested next season in the Barclays Premier League and hopefully we see more of it at the next Football World Cup in Brazil!