Umpires Bowled Out
The umpiring handed out by Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson in the recent Sydney Test not only outraged cricket fans across the globe but also raised questions about the job of umpires and the role of technology coming to their aid, writes Abhijit Chatterjee

Mark Benson adjudged Sourav Ganguly out solely on the basis of Ricky Ponting’s word

Cricket purists might well regard umpiring mistakes as part of the game. However, in these days of professionalism every umpiring mistake has the potential of playing havoc with the career of some player or the other, and even wrecking a match or series. If the issue of match-fixing had threatened to rip apart the cricketing world in the beginning of this decade, bad umpiring in the Sydney Test between India and Australia nearly threatened to split the world of international cricket. That the International Cricket Council (ICC) took firefighting measures to stop the rot goes to the credit of the governing body. The two gentlemen who stood in that game, Steve Bucknor of the West Indies and Mark Benson of England, have probably rocked the cricketing world in a manner which even the issue of match-fixing could not do. Short of calling them outright cheats, every possible adjective has been used to describe them in the days following the match.

Any number of theories were floated after the game. Some were of the view that the packed and patriotic crowd unnerved the umpires, who, arguably should be as good a professional as any player on the field. Some were of the view that the gamesmanship of the Australians forced them into making palpably wrong decisions. This was, of course, difficult to swallow. But whatever be the cause, they did bring the job of umpiring into disrepute.

The umpire is a man whom all players have to explicitly trust. It is they who conduct the game, interpret rules and hand out judgements. And if this trust is lost then the whole edifice on which the game of cricket has been built might well come crashing down like a house of cards. Nothing can be more disturbing to a cricketer, batsman and bowlers alike, than to play in the knowledge that their fate hangs in the hands of men who are consistently inconsistent. And this is what happened to India in the Sydney Test.

While agreeing that umpiring mistakes have been a part and parcel of the game over the years, Bucknor and Benson raised the hackles of Indian players and the followers of the game both in Australia and at home by making one mistake after another. And it would not be wrong to say that these two men probably played a stellar role in India’s defeat. And to add to the woes of the Indians, the two men in white refused to refer matters which, even according to the rules of the game, could have been referred to the third umpire. And to add fuel to the fire when they did refer a matter to third umpire Bruce Oxenford, the third umpire failed to read the television replays correctly, giving the benefit of the doubt to Andrew Symonds. While the rules of the game do permit the umpires to give the benefit of the doubt to batsmen, the same benefit was not given to the Indian batsmen time and again by the on-field umpires. It seems that even umpires, fair as they ought to be, tended to give different rulings under very similar conditions.

At the conclusion of the match, Indian captain Anil Kumble, a thorough gentleman that he is, told the customary post-match press conference that "only one team was playing in the spirit of the game". These words sounded very similar to the comments made by former Australian skipper Bill Woodfull over 65 years ago when speaking of the bodyline bowling of the England team. He had said, "There are two teams out there. One is trying to play cricket, the other is not". How, fittingly, both these comments refer to the Australians, though on opposite sides of the spectrum.

This is, of course, not the first time that the men in white have stolen the thunder from the players. One of the earliest recorded history, according to Wisden, when the umpire took centrestage of a match was during the 1953-54 tour of the Caribbean by England. So bad were the vibes between the two teams that by the time the third Test was being played at Guyana, Len Hutton, the England captain, objected to the two umpires appointed by the local board. Then a groundsman, Badge Menzies, who had never supervised a senior game, was asked to do duty as umpire in the Test. The flashpoint came when Cliff McWatt was run out going for a single that would have brought his stand with John Holt to 100. No one questioned Menzies’ decision but the crowd, allegedly having wagered heavily on McWatt reaching his century, erupted. Bottles and packing cases were throw at the players and Menzies’ wife and daughter who were watching the game were abused and he had to have a police guard for the remainder of the match.

Umpires deserve plenty of sympathy. Theirs is a thankless task and they are only noticed when they make mistakes. Their action and judgements are scrutinised by experts, journalists and millions of viewers, who now have the benefit of hugely sophisticated cameras and technologies such as the Snickometer and Hotspot. The ICC has a system in place to assess every decision an umpire makes during a match and it is often said that the umpires get over 90 per cent of their decisions right (This, however, did not happen in the Sydney Test). To add to all this, the ICC has reports on the umpires of the two contesting captains to fall back on. Whether they take any action on the reports of these captains is a matter of debate since Bucknor has in the past been given very poor scores by captains, including India’s Sourav Ganguly.

Cricket Australia’s CEO James Sutherland has gone to record to say that he prefers the use of more and more technology, an idea first mooted in 2002 by Duncan Fletcher, to make the task of the umpires easier. Sutherland’s comments which might have come at a critical time have been echoed by Malcolm Speed, the CEO of the ICC, who has said that a player-led referral system would be tried out in this year’s Champions Trophy to be played in Pakistan. However, it needs to be noted that even in the use of technology, the human element is involved. Therefore, it again boils down to the issue of subjectivity which one is trying hard to avoid. The Snickometer is used to demonstrate the sound of edges while the Hawkeye is used to judge leg before wicket decisions. The Hotspot is used to show whether the ball has hit the bat in a leg before situation. But most agree that these technologies are not 100 per cent accurate and the umpire would still have to rely on his eyes and ears while making a decision.

But the use of all this technology has it pitfalls as well. Replays aren’t always conclusive, but where is the harm in using something that might help? The game which is trying to attract more and more spectators would become very slow if umpires have to refer to these systems time and again, whenever there is an appeal. But these systems have been tried in a number of countries (England and New Zealand) with fairly good results. The restriction to three player appeals in an innings will stop the contesting teams from making frivolous appeals, thereby slowing down the proceedings.

Certain umpires have also advocated in public that a change in the front-foot no-ball rule is needed. This would give the umpires longer time to focus on the decision-making end of the pitch rather than spend time looking at the feet of a fast bowler as he hurls the ball at the speed of over 120 km plus. Another suggestion being made is that three umpires should be appointed for on-ground duty for each match to improve the level of concentration of the umpires.

The ICC should also look around for younger umpires. It is rather ironic that the umpires are the oldest men on the field and it is time to look around for younger blood to hand out judgements, and in a fair manner!

Oh, these umps

Pakistan forfeited the 2006 Oval Test after Billy Doctrove and Darrell Hair accused the team of ball tampering

l It was regarded as a Herculean task for any bowler to get Javed Miandad adjudged lbw by a Pakistani umpire. In fact, the great batsman was dismissed in this fashion for the first time on home soil in 1985, over nine years after his Test debut. Sri Lanka’s Ravi Ratnayeke was the lucky bowler whose leg-before appeal was upheld.
l In 1956, when England A toured Pakistan, the visiting team was rather infuriated by the umpiring. At a party in Peshawar, a group of England players staged a mock abduction of umpire Idris Begh and drenched him with a bucket of water!
l In 1987, England captain Mike Gatting and Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana were involved in a spiteful verbal duel over field adjustment during the Faisalabad Test. The incident affected relations between the two teams to such an extent that England did not tour Pakistan for another 13 years.
l Billy Doctrove and Darrell Hair accused the Pakistan team of ball tampering during the Oval Test in 2006. Led by Inzamam-ul-Haq, the visitors became the first team in Test history to forfeit a match.
l Steve Bucknor and Aleem Dar made a mess of implementing the playing conditions pertaining to bad light in the 2007 ODI World Cup final. The grand finale witnessed a farcical finish as the game ended in near-darkness.

— Vikramdeep Johal

The Indian IT sector has been looking forward to cashing in on the wrong decisions made by umpires during cricket matches.

With the cricket software market pegged at Rs 100 crore and set to grow substantially, many IT companies have already developed software to provide a solution to improve umpiring standards.

The Bangalore-based Stumpvision, which has Indian skipper Anil Kumble as one of its directors, has developed a cricket-related software which was put to use by John Wright and Greg Chappell during their coaching stints in India. This company has also showed its eagerness to work in the direction of umpiring technology solutions.

"The awful state of umpiring could be improved only by the use of technology," says an official of the company.

Another Bangalore-based company, Swantha Software Solutions, has given a demo of its umpiring applications software 3^rd EYE to Cricket Australia.

"The software can aggregate all data analysis at the end of the match and assess the umpires’ performance on real time basis," said Swantha co-founder Sanjay Rao. The software was used in the Karnataka-Mumbai Ranji match to monitor the umpires’ performance.

"The company has been waiting for an order from Australia’s cricket board," said an official of the company.

The other companies which are ready to make a foray into the cricket software market are Satyam Computer Services and Meru Consultants and Technologies, whose software is already in the market to analyse players’ performance.