Does the LBW law have any place in modern cricket?

The cricket world is at war between technophiles who argue that technology (DRS) can be used to solve some of its most vexatious decisions while their opponents claim that technology may solve some questions about fact  but is inadequate to solve questions based on conjecture and opinion. In continuance with my earlier piece, 'Should India follow Nelson Mandela', this article will ague that the LBW (declaring a batsman out Leg before Wicket) is an archaic form of dismissing a batsman. Therefore, I feel the ICC should repeal the LBW law for it will not stand scrutiny under modern jurisprudence. I will start off this debate by suggesting an alternative way to solve the problem dividing the cricket world.

Imagine the following two scenarios:

1. Person X is caught on camera unsheathing his knife and plunging it into the body of person Z who is asleep in his bed. As a result Z is dead.

2. Person Y is caught on camera unsheathing his knife, however, unlike X, Y was unable to plunge his knife into the body of person Z. As a result Z is still alive today.

What do you think will be the punishment meted out to persons X and Y in a court of law? If this is a country still practising the death penalty, will person Y be awarded the highest form of punishment like person X? This writer believes that person Y will not be given the same punishment as person X since person Y has not actually committed the crime of murder.

This analogy to a murder trial resembles the judgement involved in an LBW decision. In an LBW appeal the bowler claims that if the ball had not been illegitimately impeded then it would have definitely hit the stumps. Hence the batsman who impeded the ball must be given cricket's equivalent of the death penalty. The technophiles, who are in favour of using DRS to adjudicate on LBW decisions, argue that technology can definitely be used to prove that the ball would have hit the stumps if it had not been impeded. To technophiles, I would ask a question that is the favourite of detectives, 'Where is the body?' Since the body, i.e. the stumps are undisturbed, is alive no murder has yet been committed and therefore there is no case for the prosecution.

Hence I would like to make a suggestion which may unite the technophiles and those opposed to using the DRS for an LBW decision. I suggest that the LBW as a method of dismissing a batsman should be struck off from the laws of cricket. Instead, a run penalty should be imposed on the batsman every time the ball comes in contact with his 'illegitimate' body parts. The DRS could be used to ascertain such decisions as well. The penalty could be similar to the one imposed on a fielding team when the ball hits its helmet parked on the field.

The LBW decision is an opinion and the law courts have increasingly realised the inadequacies of expert opinions to convicting defendants. Similarly, cricket should evolve into modernity by getting rid of decisions based on opinions and try to be governed only by facts. I look forward to this debate.