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[WicketView]

KiC,
It is done to keep a record of the game in as objective a way as possible. It is be done by a person who follows instructions ... if the umpire says out lbw, this person records that, if the umpire says run of the bat, it gets recorded, if he says it is bye, it is noted as such. That is different from having people to sit and judge if the catch missed was a catch or not, if the umpire made a mistake or not.

WN,
The scoreboard in cricket is also maintained accurately by scorers.

[keep-it-cool]

WV, but on matters such as lbw, byes, nicks, one shorts etc, we are going by the umpire's judgment, aren't we? So, there is an element of judgment involved anyway. The only thing different about fielding stats is that the source of the judgment is being shifted to a different person - maybe the third umpire or someone else designated for this purpose.

There may be other issues such as consistency in judgment standards across matches and across those who make the judgment, a good fielder may get his hands to a ball that a bad fielder may not even attempt and, hence, get penalised for dropping a half chance ...since I don't follow baseball at all I have no clue how such things are tracked. But I am sure it can be worked out - if tennis can follow the number of unforced errors, why can't cricket do the same?

[LosingNow]

There may be other issues such as consistency in judgment standards across matches and across those who make the judgment, a good fielder may get his hands to a ball that a bad fielder may not even attempt and, hence, get penalised for dropping a half chance ...since I don't follow baseball at all I have no clue how such things are tracked. But I am sure it can be worked out - if tennis can follow the number of unforced errors, why can't cricket do the same?

Agree judgment is involved..hence we will have some mistakes in the beginning but with experience most of the scoring will be accurate.
In baseball, the official scorer makes the call.. of the games I have seen over the last 20+ years, I have heard less than 1% of the "error calls" disputed. The scorers on marginal calls err on the side of the fielder ..which is fair, I think.