Proponents argue that it helps maintain the spirit of cricket: it does not, it simply makes cricket an entirely technologically-based game
While appreciating that it is becoming absurdly Victorian even to think of describing cricket as a metaphor for life, the game does, when played in the traditional fashion, impart certain certain lessons that may be useful in the wider world.
One is about learning to live with the occasional injustices meted out by human error. Those of us who are or were bowlers, at however ordinary a level we have played, will have seen a plumb lbw shout given not out; and those who are or were batsmen will have known a ball was going down the leg side and then to our shock seen the umpire’s finger going up.
It is deeply tiresome, but it is not the end of the world, and learning to live with such annoyances ought to help us to understand that not everything in the world goes to plan.
Those days may, however, now be over, and many cricketers will not be sure it is a good thing if they are. A ‘smart ball’ containing a microchip will not only be able to ‘track’ a ball to settle lbw decisions, using a smartphone, but it will also contain a microphone to gauge whether a snick has occurred when there is an appeal for a caught behind.