How do the penguins prepare for a Cricket World Cup?

I’ve always felt a connection with umpires. I even decided to referee one of the rugby codes at one point, before I realised just how difficult the job is.

The plight of a match official is that your good work goes largely unnoticed, while your worst is criticised far worse than any error a player makes.

So when the opportunity came up to chat to Billy Bowden and Paul Reiffel, who will both be adjudicating at the 2015 Cricket World Cup, I jumped at it.

In the lead-up to a World Cup, everyone’s nervous.

Opening bowlers don’t want to ‘chuck a Harmison’, and spray the first ball of their tournament to second slip (or worse, for five wides down the leg side). Opening batsmen don’t want to play a rash shot at one of their early deliveries on a perfect day and a perfect strip for batting. Fielders will crouch that little more earnestly for the opening moments of the tournament, knowing a dropped catch can turn the course of a match.

The people at the top of the cut strip barely rate a mention, but talking to an intensely competitive Paul Reiffel, and a surprisingly cool, calm and collected Brent ‘Billy’ Bowden ahead of their participation in the tournament, it was clear that the 50-over showpiece meant plenty to them as well.

“We all want to put in a good performance,” Reiffel said.

“In many ways it’s the impossible challenge, not making a mistake. It’s a major challenge, and it motivates me to get out there at the highest level.”

One of the clearest, and perhaps strangest, sentiments that came out of my discussion with Reiffel was a fierce competitiveness that drove his rise to the top of the umpiring ranks. It was likely the same competitiveness and desire that led to him playing 35 Test matches and 92 one dayers, with most Aussie cricket fans of the 90s well attuned to the rhythmic run-up and action of ‘Pistol’.

My first thought was that a man who’d played in a couple of World Cups himself would have a unique insight into what the differences were between the officials and the players.

“No difference,” he said (that one took me by surprise).

“Umpiring is a real team environment, just as playing is. We prepare to perform well, and all that matters is making sure you get it right on the day.

“At the ground you have four umpires, a referee and a series of coaches, which changes with each venue. Sure, once you’re out there you’re on your own. It can be lonely out there. But you have to use your support at the other end.”

Lonely, definitely. The “impossible challenge”, as Reiffel put it, to get every single decision spot-on means that in the heat of the moment, with only their fallible eyes to rely on, umpires must make the call right then and there. That call might decide the game. It might not. It might be sort of right, it might be emphatically wrong.

Cricket’s traditions and protocols allow for the darkest of blacks, the lightest of whites and the most uncertain of greys when it comes to enforcing the laws, and the often-invoked spirit of those laws.

Talking to Reiffel, then Bowden, it was clear that the only thing they were interested in was being right every time. If they were shown to be wrong, moving on quickly was the priority; clear the head; make sure the next one was right.

Of course, we all know Bowden. The high stepping, crooked-finger-brandishing New Zealander we’ve enjoyed watching at the highest level for years.

We all know of his arthritis, the cause of the crooked finger that cues a batsman’s dismissal. I expected him to be a character, but what I didn’t expect was the greeting he gave me.

“The ROOOARRRRRRRR”, he yelled, almost blowing my ear off.

Yep, I was talking to Billy Bowden alright.

But even after a greeting that would have made a lion stoop his head in shame, Bowden was thoroughly professional, insightful and open.

Bowden said when you walk out into the middle, it’s fierce, and you’re expected to be the calm one.

“It’s a battlefield out in the middle. But you’re not to get excited out there.

“Patience is the thing I’ve learned, and even that is still a work in progress.

“Patrick, I was born in 1963, and I came out dancing.”

He admitted that he like to have fun out there, and leave umpiring in a better place than what he found it in, but he said he maintained the focus of an umpire.

“Cricket comes first, players come first. You’ve got to have your own way of going about things, but professionalism is of utmost importance.

“You can’t get caught up in their [the players’] game. You have to concentrate on your job.

“You have to approach the game extremely professionally, while also allowing it to be fun, be natural, and be able to admit when you make mistakes.”

On the topic of mistakes, I ventured into a line of questioning about DRS, with rather little hope about the kind of answers I would receive.

“DRS is a great friend of ours,” Bowden said.

“After every game, the decision-making improves. You don’t have to concern yourself if someone goes on to make a century. It’s not something you have to worry about.

“DRS is one of the best things, for us, that’s happened in the game.”

DRS as condoned dissent? It’s not that way to Bowden, but an opportunity to use technology to make sure bad decisions have as little impact on the game as possible. Coming from an international umpire, that’s a ringing endorsement.

But beyond DRS and howlers, every cricket fan has a little soft spot for umpires. It’s reassuring to know that Paul Reiffel is as competitive about getting decisions right as he was about dismissing batsmen, and the behind the eccentricity, Billy Bowden thinks professionalism is the most important part of the job.

Professionalism was definitely the word. Their calming influence on the pitch was backed up by character and integrity in our conversation.

Clearly smooth media operators, they had no desire to shirk hard questions. They have no desire to outdo what the players can, merely facilitate the best contest they can.

Bowden said that although players step over the mark sometimes, it was mostly the case the anything construed as sledging was people “playing hard and playing fair”.

Combine that with a clear openness to admit they make mistakes and the fact that they embrace the tools there to help them, and it seems the perfect attitude for an official to adopt.

Let’s hope that it carries them to success and good decision-making in the World Cup.

Good luck boys. You’ll need it.

Paul Reiffel and Billy Bowden are members of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires, and will be officiating in the 2015 Cricket World Cup