Suddenly after the unfortunate incident of sacking Steve Bucknor – who in my opinion has been made an escape goat to defuse the tension – the captioned subject is the latest and the hottest subject that is being discussed in the cricket circles and a question is being raised, whether we should keep the neutral umpires or we go for the best umpires to officiate the international matches?
Former players like Steve Waugh, Ramiz Raja, Wasim Bari etc., have raised a voice to get the best umpires. From this notion it gives one the impression that so far the neutral umpires were not the best, therefore, there is a need to get the best ones!
This is once again a farcical move by the gurus who keep on talking about something different only to remain in focus of the media. The need for neutral umpires was felt in the past when the home umpires were not only making errors in judgment, but they were emotionally behind their own home team. Pakistan, especially Imran Khan felt the need for neutral umpires and asked the authorities to implement this as a rule. In fact, the first neutral umpires officiated an international match was in Pakistan. Since then it became a practice and hence the rule.
Prior to that, usual concerns and voices were raised against this move that, it is ridiculous and there is no need to have neutral umpires because, an umpire is supposed to be neutral, and he is neutral. Therefore, the authorities would be doubting at the integrity of the umpires if they implement this neutral umpire rule.
It is almost two decades, may be a little less since the neutral umpires are officiating the international matches, barring Darrell Hair’s controversial decision and the ludicrous charges laid by him against the Pakistani team at the Oval in 2006 for ball tampering and then forfeiting the test match, there wasn’t any major umpiring dispute.
In fact Pakistan must ask the ICC to advise them of the status of the match which was awarded in England’s favour and they wanted it to be called a drawn or abandoned match.
Steve Bucknor’s case is being compared with Darrell Hair’s which is absolutely wrong. Because, the Indians have shown discomfort against Bucknor, although two years ago in Kolkata on Bucknor’s 100 th test they showered praises at him and after that a couple of decisions that went against them, they were after his blood and they took this as an opportunity to get him sacked.
The unfortunate thing is, India has chosen the wrong path, they should have strongly pursued Harbhajan’s case and got rid of that racist label from his back, instead they thought this is the best opportunity to rid of Bucknor.
By getting rid of Bucknor will not change much to their game, it is possible in the 3rd test at Perth they might loose even more badly against the Australians. Then, will they demand Billy Bowden and Mark Benson to be replaced with Amish Saheba and Suresh Shastri? In fact, Mark Benson has given more dubious decisions than Bucknor, even Ganguly has talked about it by saying Benson should have consulted Bucknor about his controversial catch, instead he took Ponting’s word.
So, the point is who is the best umpire? In English language only one can be the best and not two, or four or six umpires could be the best at the same time. The umpire of the year award always goes in favour of Simon Taufel, he seems to be a very cool headed person, but this doesn’t mean Aleem Daar is not. The thing is the Australians and even the South Africans, the likes of Andre Nel they try to intimidate Aleem Dar whereas, Simon Taufel is respected by most Asian teams, no one tries to intimidate him.
Pakistan has got two very good umpires to officiate international matches namely, Aleem Dar and Asad Rauf. Whereas, none of the other Asian countries have any umpire who has officiated an international match outside their own home country. So, there is clearly a shortage of umpires to officiate international matches outside their home country. In case the new rule, if implemented that, only the best umpire should officiate, the Indian umpires will not get a chance to officiate a match in Australia, England and South Africa. West Indies is represented only by Billy Doctrove since Bucknor is out, in fact they are asking him to take retirement and he is left with no choice. So, will they bring back Darrell Hair? That will be a disgrace to umpiring.
Looking from the other perspective, other than Mark Benson there are other umpires such as Billy Bowden and Rudi Koetzen, who are generally rude towards some of the Asian players and their appealing. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to notice that, it is very obvious from the way they behave against their appealing and the way they talk to these players by frowning and being rude which is very obvious from the body language and the facial expressions.
Whereas, these same umpires, their attitude towards non-white players appeals is very different, even when it is turned down, they smile and talk and explain it to the bowler that it was missing the leg stump or whatever the case may be. Or, even when hey are talking to the captain of the non-white team, it appears they are very nice and amiable.
In short, they show respect to the white players and they show a kinda dissent when disapproving the non-white player’s appeal for an LBW or caught behind / bat and pad or, close decisions. These are the things or the actions that leads to the creation of biases and prejudices which separate the good umpires and the not so good. A good umpire should be able to possess these qualities and among the white umpires, the only one who has these qualities, other than the technical qualties is, Simon Taufel. Therefore, the possession of sound technical qualities plus the humbleness and the humility that makes a true professional.
PLZ READ BELOW, THIS SHOWS PATHETIC HYPOCRISY AND BAD BEHAVIOUR OF INDIAN PLAYERS:
While Ricky Ponting and his teammates continue to cop criticism for their abrasive demeanour on the field, the indomitable Australian media went on a counter-attack and compiled a rap chart to claim that India is the worst-behaved team under the sun.
‘The Sunday Telegraph’ painstakingly collected and collated official ICC data, which shows India having faced more sanctions than any other Test playing nation in the past 10 years.
The daily also took a jibe at former India captain Sourav Ganguly, dubbing him “the game’s undisputed problem child, being hauled over the coals by cricket’s governing body a record 12 times in his international career.”
“Overall, Indian players have been charged for 43 infringements since 1997, for offences including intimidating umpires, abusing rival players, ball tampering, time wasting and widespread dissent,” it said.
The report pointed out that of the current touring party, five Indians players — Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh — have either been fined or suspended in the past.
“The rap sheet is evidence the Indians are anything but cricketing choirboys as they continue to deny spinner Harbhajan is guilty of racially abusing all-rounder Andrew Symonds,” it said.
salam wasim bhai,first of all sorry my english not good.i am complain about the indian.because here pakistani support indian comment.only ramiz ashraf and javed a khan and me against the indian.but can is someone can tell me why the indian on this blog not giving more comment? like amit p and hrishi who was the indian poster. pakistani is support indian comment but the indian wants to war. this happen many timing on international blog. i am not agree with you comment because you support the indian because umpiring not losing game for the india. but pakistani being nice to the indian. i am say that the indian should learn.thanks
spirit of the game. when indians started appealing against inzamam for obstructing the ball where was their spirit? there was no way inzamam could be run out, he was well conscious of where the ball was going. the ball was directly thrown at him in fact. also in this series yuvraj’s foot touched the boundary rope and he still gave the impression that he had saved a boundary. as soon as his foot touched the rope the crowd “booed” him from the back but he didnt say anything. that is cheating- then why is indian media saying indians are best behaved team and play in the true spirit of the game?
my criticism of india will stop once they get rid of the hypocrisy in their minds.
Awas :
Although I agree with almost evrything you said except the betting part, on field betting is still rampant as it was before. Its just that players and officials have become cautious and they donot interact openly with book makers as they used to in the past.
I do agree with the writer that India have shifted its focus from Harbhajan by requesting removal of Bucknor. It’s a shame that ICC after saying that “we appoint the umpires and no country can force us in this decision making” they changed their mind and removed him. Especially after announcing that Bucknor will officiate in the third test.
India should have contacted ICC before the series started to persuade them not to appoint Bucknor. During the series, it was nonsensical on India’s part. No team has ever done that before to have an Umpire removed because of umpiring errors. ICC infact have made a clever move by giving India a carrot.
And India has succumbed to it. It has been announced today that India withdraws its threat to quit the tour of Australia if an appeal against Harbhajan Singh’s ban fails. Money is flashing in front of their eyes as they are talking about financial consequences.
To call removal of Bucknor similar to Hairgate is plain silly. For the first time a team was branded cheats by an umpire, without proof, by giving 5 penalty runs. Later events proved that he was indeed wrong. This is entirely different from umpiring errors which happen in every match. All Asian teams had had problems with Hair. A racist never admits that he is one but Hair definitely was despite his denials. Remember how he humiliated Murali? How is it possible to see his arm action which is not even in his eye line whilst at the same time looking at foot-fault as well as LBW, catch behind and so on all in a split second. One must have at least six eyes to be able to do all that at the same time.
I don’t agree though that ICC will ever bring Hair back. By suing his employer for racism and then withdrawing the case he has firmly closed that door shut.
Hairgate was infact more akin to Bollyline. That’s were India should have stuck to its guns if they were sure that Habhajan didn’t see a monkey in Symonds. And the Western world should realise that monkey is not a disgraceful word or indeed a disgraceful animal. It’s revered in India. As Geoff Boycott said, even if he did say monkey so what? Aussies shouldn’t complain when someone gives them a taste of their own medicine.
At the end of the day my prediction is that Rajan Madgalle will defuse the situation diplomatically by exonerating Bhajji for lack of evidence and India withdrawing charges against Hogg as a goodwill gesture and to prove their sportsmanship. Mark my words.
Wasim
I don’t agree that the betting is still rampant that it once was. Off the field yes but not on it. One of the few good things that ICC ever did was to stamp on this menace and to appoint an anti-corruption team. Since then on-field betting is rarely a talked about affair. Umpiring errors are more of a case of incompetence and generally their bias towards certain teams especially Australia.
I agree that technology is the best way forward. True that technology is not foolproof either. But at least it will be consistent in making same errors or not making same errors and that gives assurance and equal chance to both teams.
Aleem Dar is the best, recently I have seen Simon Taufel also giving bad decisions, but this is not the issue, the issue is that why neutral umpires are giving biased decisions.
I am not willing to admit that the neutral umpires were neutral in the 2nd test between India and Australia, both the umpires changed the fate of the game by their umpiring, not only the ground umpires but also the third umpire who had all the technology at his disposal even he gave some unfavorable verdicts against India anybody who saw the replays could have easily given Symonds out stumped, why mike Procter failed to judge it properly.
We know that betting is rampant in world cricket if the players can be bought then why can’t the umpires be bought.
This whole argument of best and Neutral umpires would have only been valid if their was no bias involved in their decision making.
All of these umpires are highly experienced and can certainly do a better job than what they did in the 2nd test.
In fact Asian teams have always gotten a raw deal from these neutral umpires. ICC needs to increase the pool of its so called elite umpiring panel, the third umpire should have the power to overturn the decision of field umpires and the new rule where a batsman can appeal against the decision is a good one but it should be extended to all forms of cricket. Similar rights of appeal to the third umpire should also be given to the bowler, to make the process more transparent.
If the objective is to make cricket umpiring more perfect and to control errors in judgement then I can’t understand why we are resisting technology?
The white players donot respect Asian Umpires and put undue pressure on them and the white Umpires discriminate against the Asian teams, the recent Umpiring rows both benefitted white teams.
ICC is becoming increasingly biased and is favouring mostly non Asian countries.
ICC should revise the quality control reviews of its umpires, and should adopt a more strict policy or procedures where the umpires who perform poorly should be used less and a portion of their match fees should be held back as fines.
I think one of the reasons that some of the Asian or non-white cricket players do not get respect from some of the umpires especially those umpires mentioned above is due to the fact that they are unable to communicate well in English.
This does not mean that they deserve a rough treatment from the umpires, but that is the general behaviour of the public towards less educated people. After all Simon Taufel treats every single player equally and no wonder he is rated as the best umpire.
Even Aleem Daar’s professionalism is of the highest caliber by all means but, being a non-white umpire the Australians and South African bowlers try to intimidate him and in some cases they have challenged his decisions whereas, they don’t do that with Taufel.
Coming back to the point of commanding respect, even by not being able speak English like Englishmen you should still be respected by the umpires and that is what true professionalism is all about. But, with these few umpires named above they have set biases against players rather countries. Darrell Hair is on top of the list and good to see his back. But, he has mentioned once about Rudi referring the Pakistani cricket team as “the cheats” is something very bad. Unfortunately, no official course of action was taken against Rudi.
I would emphasize the need of education among the Pakistani players and the ability to speak English to the level of expressing themselves clearly. They don’t have to have a degree in English literature but, communication is the key to success. In the corporate world, people who communicate better than those who possess technical and professional skills have edge over them because of the ability to express it better than others.
The jobs of the cricketing boards all over the world should not only be restricted to produce good sound technical players but, also teach them how to express themselves and communicate better.
Apart from that the academy must also invite and encourage more umpires who can join the league of the elite panel of umpires to officiate international matches outside their home country. Only then there will be a better standard of umpires i.e., creating a balance between the so-called white and non-white umpires.
Its a shame that we have to use this expression of whites and non-whites, which may sound more like racism but, it is a fact and it is happening in today’s cricketing world. Anyone who denies this or challenge this as false is burring his own head under the sand like an ostrich.