Line & Length
R Mohan
Golden oldies must give way to younger men in white coats
February 09, 2008
They were blacklisted for wrecking the World Cup final. Much like a bad penny, the usual suspects keep bobbing up. And they are at it again but the case list has got so bad that ICC is now talking of expanding the elite panel from 10 to 12. Will that be sufficient?
The oldest umpires on the circuit are the ones who are dropping clangers. It got so bad that Steve Bucknor, 61, was sent packing midway in the Test series Down Under. Rudi Koertzen, 58, was the one who created a storm in the ODI series by adjudging Rohit Sharma caught behind that led to the batsman being hauled up before the match referee.
TV umpire Koertzen was named by match referee Jeff Crowe as the one who was most vocal at the discussions during the rain and bad light breaks at the World Cup final last year. In fact, Crowe declared that Koertzen was the architect of the appalling decision to restart the match that was already over by the Duckworth-Lewis method. As a punishment, the whole team was stood down from the Twenty-20 world championship. The brief sentence over, the wrecking crew are in the thick of action once again.
The Australians make the point that younger umpires are the ones who are faring better. The best ones on the book now are Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar although the Pakistani did suffer the ignominy of being the on-field umpire in Barbados who actually waved the celebrating Aussies back to the bowling crease. That was hardly his fault as the rules were wrongly interpreted by the seniors in the officiating team. Umpires tend to blame the workload for all their woes. With an official of the Elite panel likely to stand in at least 10 Tests and 15 ODIs a year, the stress is building, especially because there are other international events to stand in from a list that is rapidly growing and which will take a quantum leap with IPL T-20 matches. The time spent away from home simply adds to the pressures.
The men in white coats are sometimes to be pitied rather than censured. They are scrutinised by improving television technology that is beginning to point out more and more of their errors, playing it back frame by frame in endless replays that are the pride of producers. Even so, a conservative ICC keeps dragging its feet over finding more way to assist umpires. A campaign chorus led by Ian Chappell keeps harping on the fact that technology will erode the field umpires' authority. The fear is the men in the middle will simply take recourse to passing the buck to their colleagues in the television room rather than make the judgment themselves. While this may be true, ways can be found to meld technology with the game to enhance the accuracy of decision-making.
The former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe's idea of a player referral system is a solution that deserves to be tried out. The member of the MCC's cricket committee is working on his pet project of letting technology come to the aid of umpires, which he will be presenting before the ICC in April.
Crowe has been quoted as saying, "It is the only way forward. If you offer technology to the umpires then they will use it for every decision and that would slow the game down tremendously. The best way to police the sport is for the players to challenge when they feel something is wrong."
"They will be policing themselves - that is the best way to ensure the spirit of the game is followed. You can't have a player challenging one minute and then not walking when he knows he's nicked it the next. That will sort out what happened in Sydney," Crowe said. The referral system works very well in tennis. While the American pro sport system of high technology help to referees by posting many men in front of a bank of TV screens may be too heavy for a game like cricket, there is no denying video equipment points the way forward even though the science is far from 100 per cent accurate right now.
Expanding the elite panel is certainly a way forward. Surely, the oldies must give way to younger men who seem to get more things right. A sentimental attachment to those nearing the retirement age will backfire, as it did in the case of Bucknor's annual Australian sojourn proving most expensive in terms of good relations between players, teams, boards and countries.
A combination of an expanded Elite panel that should take into account the fact that two of the senior men will be retiring very soon and the player referral system as recommended by the younger Crowe may rid the game of some of the gross umpiring errors from the oldies that have been plaguing international cricket.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
The oldest umpires on the circuit are the ones who are dropping clangers. It got so bad that Steve Bucknor, 61, was sent packing midway in the Test series Down Under. Rudi Koertzen, 58, was the one who created a storm in the ODI series by adjudging Rohit Sharma caught behind that led to the batsman being hauled up before the match referee.
TV umpire Koertzen was named by match referee Jeff Crowe as the one who was most vocal at the discussions during the rain and bad light breaks at the World Cup final last year. In fact, Crowe declared that Koertzen was the architect of the appalling decision to restart the match that was already over by the Duckworth-Lewis method. As a punishment, the whole team was stood down from the Twenty-20 world championship. The brief sentence over, the wrecking crew are in the thick of action once again.
The Australians make the point that younger umpires are the ones who are faring better. The best ones on the book now are Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar although the Pakistani did suffer the ignominy of being the on-field umpire in Barbados who actually waved the celebrating Aussies back to the bowling crease. That was hardly his fault as the rules were wrongly interpreted by the seniors in the officiating team. Umpires tend to blame the workload for all their woes. With an official of the Elite panel likely to stand in at least 10 Tests and 15 ODIs a year, the stress is building, especially because there are other international events to stand in from a list that is rapidly growing and which will take a quantum leap with IPL T-20 matches. The time spent away from home simply adds to the pressures.
The men in white coats are sometimes to be pitied rather than censured. They are scrutinised by improving television technology that is beginning to point out more and more of their errors, playing it back frame by frame in endless replays that are the pride of producers. Even so, a conservative ICC keeps dragging its feet over finding more way to assist umpires. A campaign chorus led by Ian Chappell keeps harping on the fact that technology will erode the field umpires' authority. The fear is the men in the middle will simply take recourse to passing the buck to their colleagues in the television room rather than make the judgment themselves. While this may be true, ways can be found to meld technology with the game to enhance the accuracy of decision-making.
The former New Zealand captain Martin Crowe's idea of a player referral system is a solution that deserves to be tried out. The member of the MCC's cricket committee is working on his pet project of letting technology come to the aid of umpires, which he will be presenting before the ICC in April.
Crowe has been quoted as saying, "It is the only way forward. If you offer technology to the umpires then they will use it for every decision and that would slow the game down tremendously. The best way to police the sport is for the players to challenge when they feel something is wrong."
"They will be policing themselves - that is the best way to ensure the spirit of the game is followed. You can't have a player challenging one minute and then not walking when he knows he's nicked it the next. That will sort out what happened in Sydney," Crowe said. The referral system works very well in tennis. While the American pro sport system of high technology help to referees by posting many men in front of a bank of TV screens may be too heavy for a game like cricket, there is no denying video equipment points the way forward even though the science is far from 100 per cent accurate right now.
Expanding the elite panel is certainly a way forward. Surely, the oldies must give way to younger men who seem to get more things right. A sentimental attachment to those nearing the retirement age will backfire, as it did in the case of Bucknor's annual Australian sojourn proving most expensive in terms of good relations between players, teams, boards and countries.
A combination of an expanded Elite panel that should take into account the fact that two of the senior men will be retiring very soon and the player referral system as recommended by the younger Crowe may rid the game of some of the gross umpiring errors from the oldies that have been plaguing international cricket.
Republished with permission from The Asian Age
