The Ashes: Umpiring

The Ashes was a fascinating series, but it will not be remembered for the quality of the umpiring.  With the referral system to be phased in by the ICC, should they be looking to technology or just improving the quality of the umpires?  I feel that there is an argument for both.

There were a number of high-profile mistakes by umpires in this series, such as the Strauss catch at Lord’s, the decision against Marcus North (the one where he didn’t hit it), the Ponting decision (he was given out caught, although he didn’t hit it, but should have been LBW anyway) and so on.

The run out of Michael Clarke on Sunday at the Oval wasn’t referred by Billy Bowden, even though it was the tightest decision you could ever see.  Bowden got it right, but was criticised for taking the chance.

Part of the problem for the ICC and umpires is that they can’t win either way.  If they don’t bring in the technology they will be damned for every wrong decision that is taken.  If they do turn to referrals as the answer, there will still be mistakes made, and uproar as a result.

Quite why the media and public can accept that players will make mistakes and give poor performances but require that the officials be completely faultless is beyond me.  The assumption that technology will eradicate mistakes is equally misguided – the technology is only as good as the humans using it.  All of this was demonstrated during England’s tour of West Indies earlier this year under the trial of the referral system.  The quality of decision making was not demonstrably improved, and the system led to a number of “insufficient evidence” type reprieves.

Ultimately, whilst technology can, and should, be used to a certain extent to ease the pressure on the men in the middle, the surest way to reduce the sort of controversy witnessed during the Ashes is the ensure that umpires are better at their job.

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