Australia’s selectors and International Cricket Council (ICC) administrators face a similar dilemma.
Poor performance and a threadbare cupboard.
The only thing more underwhelming than Australia’s first innings with the bat at the second Ashes Test was the wheels finally coming off the Decision Review System (DRS) thanks to some baffling button pushing from third umpire Tony Hill.
Umpires are not robots and 50-50 calls will always cause conjecture. Mistakes are to be expected.
This was different. This made previous poor calls in the series look relatively fair. This was the antithesis of the laws that govern umpiring, of giving batsmen the benefit of the doubt, of everything the DRS is about – the prevention of horrific howlers.
It of course had no impact on the result, no umpire possibly could in this game given the mismatch in class between the two teams. But the ICC might not be so lucky next time.
England sent a decision upstairs when Marais Erasmus turned down a strong caught-behind appeal against Ashton Agar.
Despite HotSpot showing no edge, Hill inexplicably thought the sound picked up by the snickometer was so conclusive he should overturn Erasmus’s call.
This is not the Under-12 Bs. “I heard a noise” has never been grounds for a Test match dismissal, nor will it ever be.
Later it became apparent the ball passing the bat was the sound that registered.
Even the English were aghast.
Some say the use of the DRS needs to be clarified given the near-constant controversy it has produced in the opening two Tests of the series.
Bemused West Indian icon Michael Holding had a different theory after Agar was given his marching orders.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with the system, its the people using it,” Holding said.
The problem in part is the ICC’s elite umpiring panel.
Eight of the game’s 12 best umpires are either English or Australian, leaving Aleem Dar, Hill, Erasmus and Kumar Dharmasena as the men to oversee the back-to-back Ashes series.
ICC chief Dave Richardson says he’s open to discussing the use of non-neutral umpires for some series.
Let’s hope so.
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