Maybe if the Indians didn't appeal every second ball the umpires might make less mistakes ,seen an appeal today for LBW today that went for four runs, its bordering on ridiculous at times

Thats pretty much it OF and with neutral umpires there can be no accusations of bias.

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Mark.

Let's be honest here; the best teams tend to get the most decisions going their way. It happens in most sports. The best teams create the scenarios where they can get those decisions, that's why they get them. Umpires are human beings and are, by nature, fallible. Mistakes are made, we have to live with it.

let's look at last summer. In the First Test at Lord's the umpire failed to give the last Indian batsman (RP Singh?) out lbw to Panesar, thus denying England their Test victory. In the next Test at Trent Bridge several wrong decisions were made including not giving Ganguly out, then giving him out later on. That Test ended with the Indians victorious yet they had been on the wrong end of the decisions. Were the umpires biased or just plain wrong?

I like to thik that pre 1990's the English umpires were the best, they sure had the best reputations around (despite what some might claim). At that time they were considered the most impartial, at a time when you couldn't get Javed Miandad out lbw in Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad. True, they had their run ins with the opposition but in general their integrity was questioned far less often than their counterparts elsewhere.

The one problem with English umpires was that they tended to give marginal decisions against the home side.

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Mark.

I was not saying that the umpires are biased. Just that every umpiring error appears to benefit Australia.

As I write this, Ponting has received a poor decision, so I suppose things have evened up this time around...

It is good that I wrote "this time around" because Symonds has been reprived by Umpire Bucknor at a crucial point in this match. If Australia do post a huge score in the first innings, all the kudos should go to the umpires, particularly to Steve Bucknor.

Now firstly, i will say that there was no case to answer in the Melbourne test which was the premise for this thread. Aus won that fair and square no doubt.

But i must say that i feel for Indians in regards the Symonds caught behind. I'm an Aussie and it very much annoyed me as well. Lineballers - batpads/LBW's/feather edges ect - you can only be philosophical about those. But there was no excuse for that decision. I heard that nick all the way up here in Brisbane for gods sake.

Australia could have recovered from that situation if Symonds had been given. Clark, our no11, is a good batsman (better than any other no9 going around at the moment) and all the ones before him can bat too. There would have been nothing stopping Aus recovering to win the test. As an Aus fan, it would have made things very interesting that for sure.

But because of one stupid decision, we will never know.

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This thread was not because of the umpiring errors at the MCG. Also, this thread does not mean to say that umpires are biased. All I want to highlight is that more often than not, in the past few years, umpiring errors benefit Australia than the team they are playing against.

O.K Fair enough Kasame. It's just that you mentioned the MCG three times in your thread-starter that made me think that.

I am sorry, but i do not agree - I reckon this is used a an excuse for losing. I remember that eternal spin-doctor, Bob Woolmer, trotting out some idiotic dossier (one that was never publically released) a few years back when Pakistan copped a hiding down here, complaining about the same thing.

The fact is that when you lose, you tend to dwell on the bad decisions your team received. But when you win, you tend to forget them. Because you have won - it's all sweet.

I know this, because i remember Australia having a terrible run with the umpires when they lost the Ashes in 2005. Yet i seemed to have forgotten all of the rest of the bad decisions we have copped ever since, because Australia have been winning.

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