Vishal Uppal analyses the reasons behind sudden spurt in
wrong umpiring decision. It can be attributed to over dependence on technology; but
there are many factors that are contributing to poor umpiring decisions.
There was a time when decisions on the field were solely
made by the umpires. The players trusted the umpires for their neutrality and
keen eye for detail. A cricket lover can tell you the contribution of umpires
who left the permanent mark in umpiring history. David Shepherd was loved and
respected by players for his decision making ability and we never saw any
player arguing with him on any of his decisions. Dickie Bird, Simon Taufel and Srinivas
Venkatraghavan commanded the same respect from players. Their names became
synonymous with umpiring. However, cricket, though a gentlemen game suffered
through bad umpiring. It can be traced back to the last three decades of
previous century. There were numerous decisions of biased and faulty umpiring
by umpires who might have gained pennies through it. Neutral umpiring gained
prominence with strengthening of International Cricketing body, ICC, but it was
absent during 80s and some of part of 90s. The ugly face can be seen in India
Vs Pakistan matches in Sharjah in 80s. Shakoor Rana was famous for his argument
with Mike Gatting and Jeremy Coney and his decisions that went in favor of Javed
Miandad and players of Pakistan team. Darrel Hair was known for his dubious
decisions and the most controversial of all umpires was Steve Bucknor. Though
regarded as one of the best, he has maximum number of altercations with players
and captains of cricketing sides.
Bad umpiring in current form is costing matches to the teams.
Though, an umpiring decision can be reviewed and reversed, the instances of
team not opting for review or with review option expired has led to an entire
match thrown in favor of other team. In a match between Pakistan and
Afghanistan in ICC World Cup 2019, Rashid Khan trapped Imad Wasim in front when
he was on 1. The scorecard at that moment was 145 for 5. The umpire ruled it
not out. The replay clearly showed that the ball trajectory had met the
required criteria to be given out. Imad Wasim survived and produced a
match-winning knock of unbeaten 49.
In the first match of Ashes 2019 Test series, there were 7
wrong umpiring decisions with 5 being overturned by DRS. The performance of
umpires came under intense scrutiny. Aleem Dar and Joel Wilson created a bad
taste for teams and fans. Both were pounded on twitter for the alarming number
of wrong decisions.
Why is it happening? The number one reason is use of
technology. Umpires are probably not paying attention due to the fact that
technology will help them if they fail. In the time when technology was limited
to stump mic and television cameras, the umpires had to concentrate on each
detail from ball being thrown and how it went towards the batsman. With
extensive use of high speed cameras, drones, 3D models, UltraEdge audio and
heat detectors, the umpires consider them as full umpiring gear. On the
contrary, the umpire must consider technology as helper rather than part of
umpiring package.
The second reason for bad umpiring is lack of experience.
Most of the well known umpires like David Shepherd and Simon Taufel were first
class cricketers. They had to leave cricket due to injury. Their grasp of the
field was impeccable. This made them world class umpires. Most of the current
lot have not played cricket at international or county level. This lack of
experience shows at crucial decision like edging and caught before leg.
The third and final reason is the environment. The current
form of cricket is aggressive. The pressure to win is high as leagues like IPL
have huge money involved. The batsmen play all kind of weird and non
conventional shorts to score runs. This puts tremendous pressure on umpires.
The bright lights, the white ball thrown at exceptional speed at white bat, the
flashing advertising boards, the players wearing loud colored outfit and noisy
crowd creates a vision blur for the umpires. For umpires of old era, the
grounds were not crowded, the advertising boards were simple, the matches were
played during the day and finding a red ball edging out of white bat was comparatively
simple.
The solution to the bad umpiring affair is to fix the surroundings as well a coaching the umpires on sharpening senses to judge better. Training former league players to become umpires can also help the sport. Cricket fans love umpires as they love their teams. We will never want Artificial Intelligence to replace human umpiring. I hope this phase of bad umpiring will pass. Positive steps by governing bodies will fix the problem of bad umpiring.
