After 300 Years, It's Time To Change the Way We Umpire Cricket

We all make mistakes. Well, my wife doesn’t, apparently, but for those of us who weren’t from our mother’s womb untimely ripp’d (it’s Shakespeare, look it up), it’s a fact of life. The thing that makes a difference is the consequences of the mistakes that we inevitably make.

If I, as a humble public servant, cock up a paragraph in a report that no-one will read, the consequences are pretty much negligible. If, however, that report was the instruction manual for the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, then we have a much bigger problem.

But, if we know that people are going to make mistakes, it does seem pretty dumb to let them do so—especially if there are ways that we can avoid them altogether. In the case of cricket, all we need to do is to set aside 300 years of tradition.

The lot of a modern international cricket umpire is not an enviable one. Every decision that they make is open to repeated and detailed scrutiny, utilsing technology never dreamt of when the gin-swillers first wrote the laws of the game.

The problem is, the more technology that is thrown at the game, the more the human frailty of umpires is exposed. Their every mistake is filmed from every possible angle and dissected gratuitously by has-been cricketers masquerading as commentators.

This is their chance to claim revenge for every wrong decision they feel they received as a player and they go about it in a delusional and disgusting orgy of unearned superiority. And where does this get us? We have a panel of umpires who are afraid to make decisions.

It is a rare sight, these days, to see an umpire give a run-out or stumping without referring to the third umpire. It happens, we’re used to it, and we even expect it to happen. The world hasn’t stopped turning; the game has survived.

I was one of those who howled in protest when the referral system was first introduced. I strongly believed that the umpires were infallible or, at the very least, should be treated as such. The recent performance of Steve Bucknor, Rudi Koertzen, Billy Doctrove and Billy Bowden (amongst others), however, has convinced me that they are no longer good enough for the game.

If we were to take the recent second Ashes Test at Lord’s as an example, there were three howlers on the fourth day alone. Simon Katich was caught off a no-ball, Phillip Hughes was given out when Andrew Strauss claimed a catch when the ball probably bounced and Michael Hussey was given out when he missed the ball by several inches.

Hughes dismissal was particularly galling as Koertzen refused to refer the decision to the third umpire when he had done so earlier in the match when Nathan Hauritz claimed a dubious catch.

While these examples all went against Australia, there is no suggestion whatsoever that there was any bias involved. Incompetence is notoriously impartial. Billy Bowden’s inability to count to six didn’t favour anyone in particular, but it did annoy everyone.

Where then, is the issue with broadening the use of technology. Why can’t every decision be referred and checked for a no-ball, that the ball did or didn’t hit the bat, where the ball pitched and whether a catch was taken cleanly. It can be done in seconds and on most occasions will only need one of the items on the list to be checked. Technology could even help Billy to count!

Never again will a game or a series be decided on a dodgy decision. Never again will there be claims of umpire bias. Never again will players be accused of cheating.

Obviously, only the technology that shows you what actually happened can be used. Hotspot is well proven, Hawkeye is also fine, up until the ball hits the bat or pad, although the predictive side of Hawkeye can’t be used.

It will also require high-speed, high definition cameras to be used at all grounds. Standard cameras simply aren’t suitable; a lot can happen in the 0.04 of a second between frames.

October 2009 sees the introduction of the Umpire’s Decision Review System, designed to give the opportunity for players to challenge an umpire’s decision. While this is a step in the right direction, it doesn’t go nearly far enough.

You can’t get a little bit pregnant and so if you’re going to embrace technology, go the whole hog and use it for everything. Leave the umpires on the ground as glorified traffic cops to make sure the bowlers don’t run in too soon and to keep players apart when tempers get frayed. Surely, they could get that right. Couldn’t they?