Whenever you go to a party or social gathering in summer, the topic of cricket invariably crops up. Not so much the wonderful batting, deadly bowling or spectacular catching, but umpiring controversies.
“Did you see Matthew Hayden was given out wrongly during the Bangluru Test?”, an Aussie supporter laments. “And Sourav Ganguly was clearly stumped at 29, but given not out and he went on to score a century in the Mohali Test.”
“Ha,” contradicts an India-lover. “But did you see that Rahul Dravid was distinctly not out and given out while Ricky Ponting was out and the umpire remained silent?”
Being middle of the road – born in India, but having lived longer in Australia – I try to convince the warring group as to how difficult it is for the umpires to give a decision within seconds.
The commentators see the replay more than ten times and criticise the umpires.
Sometimes, they contradict each other, and even themselves.
At times even Snick-o-metre and Hawke-eye don’t see eye-to-eye. And the viewers believe what they want to believe: Ponting given wrongly out if you are an Australian supporter, Ponting declared wrongly not-out if you come from the opposing country.
That said, here are some rules I want to see changed:
1. Umpires should be allowed to get more help from technology. Never mind if it slows down the game.
2. Until the umpires are able to use Snicko-metre, hawk-eye and replays, the commentators should not be allowed to use these aids.
3. If bowlers and fielders can appeal, why can’t the batsman if he is sure he has been given out wrongly? However, like challenges in major tennis tournaments, there should be limits to appeals by a batsman.
4. No runs should be given for leg-byes. Face it, the batsman was beaten. Why should his team be rewarded for it and the wicket-keeper penalised?
5. Imagine this scenario. A fielder stops a ball brilliantly and throws in one action, breaking the stumps from a long distance. The batsman is just in. But the throw ricochets and batsmen run for the overthrow. Nice way to award a fielder for his brilliance!! No runs after a ricochet, I say.
6. As we know, a ball pitched outside the leg stump – even fractionally – means that the batsman cannot be given out lbw. The commentators can easily tell because electronically the area from off stump to off-stump on both ends and the area from leg stump to leg stump on both ends are shaded in brown for replays. Umpires have no such facility. Why can’t such areas be actually coloured light brown on the pitch for the umpires to visualize and thus give spot on decisions.
Until such aids are given to the umpires, I’ll never criticise an umpire.
But the ICC should periodically test international umpires for their eye-sight, hearing, knowledge of the rules and for their mental faculties.
Just as a sportsman who performs poorly consistently is dropped, so should an umpire who gives howlers.
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