Thursday, January 03, 2008

Three Wise Men

This is the story of the first day of the Sydney Test between India and Australia, where three supposedly wise men made horrendous decisions to ruin India’s chances in what could have been their best shot at proving themselves in the ongoing Test series.

Umpires Mark Benson, Steve Bucknor and hitherto lesser-known third umpire Bruce Oxenford came up with inexcusable mistakes to let Australia make amends for a batting collapse. True, there is always somebody in the team to make a fight of it and rescue it from trouble. But the people in question were Ricky Ponting and Andrew Symonds. Benson adjudged Ponting not out when he had nicked the ball to the ‘keeper and then gave him out leg-before when he was clearly not out. Justice done to the Indians? Maybe. But he shouldn’t have been allowed to reach his half century in the first place.

Bucknor should have retired long ago. His umpiring in recent years has gone from bad to worse. Symonds was evidently out and started walking, when Bucknor’s decision in his favour made him stay on, denying Ishant Sharma a precious scalp. And then Symonds blatantly admitted in the press conference to having nicked the ball. Should Australia ever again profess that they play a fair, even game, this incident can be brought in evidence against their tall claims. Adam Gilchrist is apparently the only ‘walker’ in the team.

Finally, with Oxenford, a stumping appeal went awry. So the third umpires are not to be trusted either.

Much is said about how umpires are brought under closer scrutiny thanks to the increasing use of technology. That is true, and sometimes allowances have to be made for human error. However, there must be some limit to the number of such instances. Umpires have to up their standards if they feel they are under too much pressure from technology. Technology is here to aid them, not test them.

Three terrible decisions have already had an irreparable effect on the match. What remains to be seen is whether the ICC is going to come out of its closeted comfort and do something about the umpiring standards, or just wait and watch. For there are certain things more important than money- like the game itself.

5 comments:

Arun Ramkumar said...

ah now ya know what it feels like to be robbed ! we brits have been there,been robbed a million times ! nice title btw :)

Jaya said...

Thank you! But if I remember right, there was a dubious decision against the Australians (was it Michael Kasprowicz?), which swung the series in England's favour. So England haven't always been at the receiving end.

Jaya said...

Arun: PS- I didn't mention, it was during Ashes 2005, the test England won by two runs.

Arun Ramkumar said...

ah I guess like all the others you saw only the highlights of that match..coz if you had seen the match live you would know that Brett Lee the last wicket , was out when Aus were still 49 short of the target...if billy bowden had not nodded off we would have sealed it then and there...and what abt the 1992 world cup where bucknor robbed us ..i could keep going :)

Jaya said...

Arun, I did watch the end of the match live...guess I missed the Brett Lee part. Anyway, I suppose Kasprowicz was more publicised than Lee. Okay, truce now. The English are some of the most persecuted people in the world, okay? Let's now concentrate on the NZ series.