Umpiring Decisions

It’s an English umpire this time:

The Current England- Pakistan Series has been quite a mind boggling one. Makes one wonder why did the PCB decide to go on with the series despite the fact that in all accounts Pakistan tour was set to be an appetizer for the ashes, makes one wonder about the sanity of the people running cricket in Pakistan. However enough has been written on this subject. What the focus is the absurd decisions given in the test match. Peter Willey decisions in the first innings of not giving english players out and the hastiness which he showed in giving Pakistani batsman out should be an eye raiser for the ICC which I presume is fast asleep. However one point to note is that due to the fact that the decision making umpire was an english man so they were called genuine mistakes which an umpire is bound to make, if the same thing had occurred in the Asian part of the world ( like Nasser Hussein decision in Sri Lanka) the world would have echoed with the amount of criticism which the umpire would have faced. Mind you I am not going for the racist stuff. Its just this that their own media finds no fault in their own umpires and their decision are regarded as a genuine slip on the part of umpires.

Who can deny the fact that while Australia bomb shelled to record victories in test matches their umpires had a big role in the proceedings. Who can deny that peter parker in Australia needed a thick pair of glasses and a proper hearing apparatus because he could not hear the big nick and see the deflection of Justin Langer’s bat and the numerous Leg before decisions of Michael Slater and Gilchrist. Again when India were there, Sachin Tendulkar was given out LBW while ducking (Ah that was a neat bit of intuition on the part of umpire). But they were honest slips, ah the irony. Here Mike Gatting could not control his temper because he was asked to discipline himself and he did not like to be called for discipline by an Asian Umpire while Darrel Hair and Peter Willey can get away with this stuff, because of strong media and corresponding cricket board support. I believe that in the fashion that Inzamam had been given out he had every right to suggest Peter Willey to make an appointment with the Eye Specialist and very quick. Rightly so as the ball had missed every thing. Again when Younis Khan was given out that was also a fine display of the fact that either the honorable Umpire considered retiring or take out some time from his busy schedule for an appointment with the eye specialist (England have many fine specialists I think).

Its high time the ICC considered the notion of neutral umpires and help of technology in the game, so to save some credibility of the gentleman’s game, which has now been scarred by too many affairs. Time is running out. Cricket has had enough share of scandals and cannot afford another one.