Cricket’s clash of civilisations: implications for Umpiring?

[Maranello]

Comment article in a Pakistani newspaper by a London based writer (here).

Originally Posted by Shahed Sadullah

Genuine errors should break more or less even. And although there are no statistics to prove this, teams from the south Asian subcontinent have consistently been catching the short end of the umpiring stick for the past few years, since the elite panel with overwhelming representation from the West, was brought into being.

This is not to say that anybody cheats. The umpire replays what has happened in a fraction of a second in his mind’s eye and that is not as faithful an instrument as the camera action replay facility. The mind’s replay is coloured by one’s personal leanings and to suggest that these play no part or that these only in Easterners and not in Westerners, or vice-versa, is one of those things that would make Wodehouse’s famous character Bertie Wooster sit back and say ‘Faugh’ in disgust.

Originally Posted by Shahed Sadullah

When an Asian umpire gives five wrong decisions all in favour of the Asian side against a Western side, the glorious uncertainties and vagaries go clean out of the window. We spend hours having umpteen replays of sliding stops on the boundary line when all that is in question is one run, and there are not that many Test matches that have been decided by the margin of one run; on the other hand if you have ruled a batsman as important to Pakistan’s cause as Yousuf Youhana out when he should not have been out, you have killed the game stone dead.

I would like to see the outcome of a cricket match being based, as far as possible, on the merits of the two sides, not umpiring mistakes and even less mistakes motivated by bias, and the fact that all such errors cannot be removed by technology is no argument to support the case that therefore umpiring errors should be allowed to continue. The police cannot solve even nearly every crime but no one would say we should therefore do away with the police.

While not agreeing with all that he says, especially when he accuses the ICC and umpires of deliberate bias, I nevertheless agree that there is a genuine significant and persistent issue here that needs to be addressed. The writer talks about the wrong decisions all going against Pakistan in the Melbourne Test. There were quite a few more in the Sydney Test too, all, again, going against Pakistan and all given by Shepherd.

The point is not whether the outcome would have been any different had there been better or more consistent umpires; Australia are so far ahead of Pakistan, that the latter would still have lost had Simon Taufel and Aleem Dar, the two best and most consistent umpires around, officiated in each match.

The author suggests the following solutions:

Originally Posted by Shahed Sadullah

There are two ways out of this. The first is obviously to have more people from the East on the ‘elite’ umpiring panel which is less a body based on excellence than cultural politics. All umpires make mistakes and in more or less equal proportions and the fact that an intensely biased western media chooses to highlight the mistakes of one and glosses over or even completely ignores the mistakes of the other does not mean that one makes less mistakes than the other or for that matter, that the cultural factor is less a contributing factor towards the mistakes made by one over the other.

The other is to rely more heavily on technology and if that means that the role of the umpire is minimised, so be it. People pay to see the players, not the umpires, and though most westerners argue that the vagaries of umpiring decisions is one of the charms of the game - well, it sure is as long as these vagaries are going your way.

[Occasional Fan]

Well, what a strange article that is. Let's be clear on my own position here: I'm English, broadly a traditionalist in most of my outlook to life, definitely a supporter of the umpire's infallibility under the law (i.e. I want players to admit the umpire is right in good grace, even when he isn't) and a sceptic on some matters of technology. No surprises there for anyone who has read my comments here over the last few months. But I do try to take a neutral stance in reading anyone's views on the game - especially the professionals'.

This author starts quite promisingly: "no-one cheats", he says. But then we get a reference to "umpiring mistakes motivated by bias" - he's losing me now - and, finally, a reference to "intensely biased Western media". Sorry. That's the end for me. A pity, because the basic question is worthy of serious attention, and has had some on this board. I just don't think this chap is helping his case with this kind of comment though.

[Maranello]

Originally Posted by Occasional Fan

the basic question is worthy of serious attention, and has had some on this board. I just don't think this chap is helping his case with this kind of comment though.

OF I agree that the chap's views are not logically consistent or based entirely on fact (for instance when he accuses others of "racist bias", a statement too strong for me). However, let's get beyond that, and address the basic question, which as you say is worthy of some serious attention.

[Occasional Fan]

My problem, Maranello, is that I am not sure how to respond to an article which has been written by someone who seems to have a huge chip on his shoulder. The technology issues have been done to death on this board already, and I don't have anything to add to my earlier comments on that matter.

It may well be the case that there are not enough Eastern umpires on the elite panel, and my comment on that is predictable: if there are candidates out there who are good enough, sign them up! I am not sure that it will necessarily help in fact - even the author of the article above concedes that everyone makes mistakes and that that applies to Easterners and Westerners equally - but it may help in perception, and if that is the case then it cannot be a bad thing.

It may well also be the case that there are a couple of umpires on the panel who are nearing the ends of their careers - David Shepherd is mentioned in the above article and Steve Bucknor has also had his share of criticism from the sub-continent in the last twelve months: in the archives on this board I am fairly sure you will find calls from some posters for both of these chaps to hand in their white coats. I am not all that happy with pressure to resign being applied to umpires by aggrieved players, players' unions or national boards, much less by aggrieved supporters and journalists. However, there is a need for some kind of formal quality control system which is not subject to outside influence.

As I have mentioned somewhere on the board before, I would like to see some form of peer review applied to the work of all the umpires on the elite panel, perhaps even with the panel members themselves appointing from their own number an "elite of the elite". I could envisage a system whereby the elite panel appoints, say, three of its members to form a Quality Control function. Those three would be appointed for a fixed period - say five years - and could not be removed from that QC function for any reason other than their own resignation from the elite panel. They would be charged, on top of their own umpiring commitments, with reviewing the performance of their colleagues (and they would themselves be subject to review by their own colleagues in the QC group), and they would have the power either to recommend or perhaps even to require those of their colleagues who are found wanting to stand down. This obviously requires the consent of the elite panel umpires to have all their decisions subject to formal review by their elite colleagues, but this is not unworkable, and it is not impossible to contemplate older chaps like Shepherd and Bucknor having their work reviewed by young pups like Taufel and Bowden (for example): in my own profession (I am a Chartered Accountant), this is standard practice and for several years of my career in public practice my work was subject to regular review by more recently qualified and younger people than me.

When I last posted this suggestion (can't remember where), I admitted that I do not know what form of review (if any) is presently applied to the elite umpires' work. I confess I haven't looked into this any further since we last touched this issue. If anyone can enlighten me on this, I'm happy to be enlightened.

[Andy Mellon]

I'm sorry, but this is absolute codswallop and really infuriates me! There's a small minority from every test playing country that constantly suggest that there is some form of racism inherent in umpiring! I abhore such comments from respected writers as it undermines the respect for the umpire and incites their own supporters to be more anti-Western or anti-Asian depending on their point of view.

The problem is that there is a shortage of top class umpires at the moment. Shep seems to be highlighted as he has made a number of glaring mistakes and all have seemed to have gone against Pakistan in recent times. However, if we look historically - say 10 years ago - there was no such talk against Shepherd and I would tend to say that his ability has decreased with age rather than him being anti-Pakistan.

In addition, as evidenced by Darryl Harper's woeful performance in the current SA vs Eng test, Western umpires in Western only matches get decisions just as wrong!

Really, we want Simon Taufel umpiring at both ends in every test - no other umpire is near his standard. I always thought Peter Willey was quite a good umpire, but he's been unwilling to travel so far since the requirement for 2 neutral umpires in a test.

Sigh.

[Shaka]

I think the first thing I would do is retire certain umpires who don't seem capable of umpiring evenly on a consistent basis. There seems to be a big discrepency between the performances of Shepherd/Koertzen and the newer breed like Taufel and Bowden. Billy Bowden for example, gave Langer and Hayden a dressing down for running onto the wicket early in their innings which both took exception to. I doubt very much whether it would have occurred to Shepherd to question the Aussie batsmen, for whatever reason.

[Maranello]

You may have a point there Shaka, maybe Shepherd is too 'matey' with some of the players he officiates, especially with the established Australian players, whereas the likes of Taufel and Bowden et al maintain their distance. Or maybe that's just the way he is...!

[Milo]

Shep is just plainly 'past it'. I do not foregt the four wickets he allowed Pakistan to take from blatant no-balls on the last tour to England - thus allowing Pakistan to win a test that was crawling to a draw. Cries of bias then. No, never.

[Chuck Palumbo]

Originally Posted by Milo

Shep is just plainly 'past it'. I do not foregt the four wickets he allowed Pakistan to take from blatant no-balls on the last tour to England - thus allowing Pakistan to win a test that was crawling to a draw. Cries of bias then. No, never.

Yes I remember that- Apparently Shep was distraught after that game and even offered to retire- I wished he had.

[Shaka]

Originally Posted by Milo

Shep is just plainly 'past it'. I do not foregt the four wickets he allowed Pakistan to take from blatant no-balls on the last tour to England - thus allowing Pakistan to win a test that was crawling to a draw. Cries of bias then. No, never.

Yes I can remember how we were treated to repeated slow motion replays of every no ball wicket that Shep failed to pick up on. I think by the time the series had finished I knew every Pakistan bowlers shoe size even if Shep didn't. LOL.