Friday, March 4, 2011

Umpiring Exposed

The overall umpiring standard has been pretty good in this event so far. The LBW decisions were mostly right. There were far fewer challenges where the on-field umpire had to reverse his decision.

But there was one incident that spiced up the event. You know what I’m talking about. Dhoni challenged the umpire’s decision of not out for Ian Bell. The Hawk Eye confirmed that the challenge was right. However the umpire did not reverse the decision sighting the 2.5 meter rule. At the end of the day, Dhoni came up saying “Adulteration of Technology with Human thinking is bad”. I'm not here to debate the rule or Dhoni's outburst. At least on this instance the ball clearly looked like it was going on to hit the stumps. The umpire could have been judgmental and reversed his decision. For sure, the event had enough substance to trigger a controversy. However this is not my talking point of this article.

I felt the umpiring standards were brutally exposed in the game of Canada Vs Pakistan. It was four or more times both teams challenged the umpire’s decision and won the verdict in their favor. Though the purpose of UDRS is to avoid bad decisions, an umpire cannot be wrong 4 or 5 times on a single day.

Does it not reflect the the poor standard of umpiring?
So if an umpire can get it wrong so many times, isn't it fair that the players should be allowed to challenge more than twice per innings?

However, this many errors did not happen in the earlier games.

Why suddenly in the game of Canada Vs Pakistan?
The only logical answer I could come up is all the earlier games were played in good batting track. This one was played on a bowler friendly wicket. The batsmen were circumspect on their shot selection. As a result, more LBW shouts. Too many shouts resulted to too much pressure on the umpire. Mind you, the pressure does not have to be on the players only. On bowler friendly wickets, the pressure is very much on the umpires too.

Bottom Line: The umpires should realize that they are humans. They could make mistakes too. It does not have to come as a player challenge to refer the Third Eye. They can give the benefit of doubt to themselves and refer the Hawk Eye whenever needed.

Dinesh
Cricket Lover

1 comment:

  1. Umpire are humans agree with an exception of Ashoka Desilva who beleives he is an immortal. He seems to find ways of giving out to people when the whole world sees the otherway, not surprising he has been stripped from official duties for qfinals and doubt he would be a part of elite pannel going forward. Simon T you rock !!!

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