Judging the judges

The introduction of proposed umpire's decision review system is good idea, as it would help reduce human error element to a large extent. According to the review system, fielding side will be allowed three unsuccessful appeals for a review of any decision taken by the field umpires regarding every dismissal. The new system will be tested during the three Test series between India and Sri Lanka starting this July. Elite umpires may feel slight umbrage at the initiative, but this is good for the game and their professional fairness. Earlier, almost only run-out decisions were forwarded to the third umpire. Now any decision against which the fielding side disagrees, review system can be utilised.

Many a bad umpiring decisions have altered the outcome of a number of cricket matches, or take the game away from a side, or ruined the careers of many budding players, who met with a crucial bad decision. In cricket, there have been allegations and counter allegations not only between players and skippers, but also between countries, for example, Australia used to accuse England and vice versa for the bad umpiring decisions and India and Pakistan exchanged from verbal to official complaints of bad umpiring when playing in each other’s country untill the idea of neutral umpire was not in use.

Remember Mike Gatting and Shakoor Rana episode due to which England tour reached on the verge of being called off. In Faislabad Test in 1987, Gatting appealed for a catch, which was turned down by Rana. Gatting stood the ground, shouting, while Rana accused Gatting of cheating. More shootings, abuses and accusations that followed maligned the image of cricket being a gentleman’s game. Even Gatting and Rana were about to hit each other. What followed for months were numerous writings, apologies and consultations to ease off the bad name that was brought to the game due to the incident. That was a turning event.

Darrell Hare episode is new to all of us. The Australian umpire accused Pakistanis for ball-tampering at the fourth Test Match at Oval in 2006. Inzamam-ul Haq walked out in protest. That was a bad posture. While the Pakistani cricketers were found not guilty of the more significant charge of ball-tampering under section 42.3, Hare was sacked. Cricket was once again put to disrepute.

All along the cricket matches, increasing accusations and counter allegations by touring parties led to the birth of neutral umpires. In 2002, International Cricket Council (ICC) established an Elite Panel of Umpires to officiate in Test Matches and ODIs in the playing countries. Since then onwards both umpires in Test Match and one of the umpires in ODIs have been neutral. Before 2002, we had had one of the umpires in a Test was neutral and both umpires in ODIs were from the home nation.

With time, this also proved inadequate as competition increased to the level of technological finesse, which led to the birth of Third Umpire that was based on the logic that human eyes fail to detect close decisions even though umpires are neutral. Now technology has a role to play, and rightly so since in almost every game, particularly ODIs, close run-out decisions might have been affected had there been facility of third umpire not introduced. Moreover, it provided much-needed competition in the game via fair decisions, as biasness could enter the minds of umpires as well. Sometimes welled up emotions are so high that umpires go by the personal heartfelt rather than by professional ethics.

During IPL match between Kolkata Knight Riders and Rajasthan Royals, for example, Sourav Ganguly objected to a catch by Graeme Smith taken on the boundary, which led to bit of altercation between Shane Warne and Sourav Ganguly. While the TV footage was not clear, the umpires gave Ganguly out. In such cases, umpires tend to believe the fieldsman though in the world of cut throat competition, believing can be unprofessional at times. Not only it can test the integrity of fielders in the deep, but also will help umpires learn the playing rules and the players whom they trust.

Like other reforms proved successful, this one will likely to be a good experiment so the intention to bring about fair play in the game could be fulfilled.