Umpires Need To Reassert Their Authority

Despite the fact that the few problems with umpiring in the Ashes so far have had to do with the rules of the decision review system, its the umpires who have gotten the bulk of the criticism. It is always more satisfying to blame a human being than a disembodied system. It is also usually wrong. Now it has extended to players expressing dissatisfaction with the umpiring in print in the middle of a Test Match. James Anderson says nothing new in his Daily Mail column, offers nothing that has been suggested many times before. He has simply added his voice to the entirely unaccountable echo chamber of abuse that the Umpires have to put up with increasingly often. I would encourage all of you to watch just the final couple of sessions of the Edgbaston Test of 2005, and then try to imagine the hue and cry that would have followed if the current level of hysteria about umpiring mistakes were around in 2005. The final Australian wicket was not out according to the rules. There was also a very very close LBW shout that wasn't given by umpire Bowden about 10 overs before the end of the match.

DRS has made cricket fans and players less tolerant of the odd incorrect umpiring decision. It has made professional observers - commentators, writers, journalists - and fans on social media increasingly numb to the nuances of marginal decisions. In the nonsensical partisan world of cricket observer every decision that goes against one's team is "diabolical" or "a howler". Most people don't understand the difference between LBW as a mode of dismissal and other modes of dismissal. What is most frustrating (if I am borrow a favorite phrase of the contemporary English Test player) is that observers today often point out that an appeal is "close", but then completely ignore this fact when they offer their final word on a decision. Michael Atherton is one honorable exception here. Partisanship, and perhaps even just the desire to shout louder than others seems to make logical consistency optional. Yet, these people seem to lack self awareness to such an extent that they seem oblivious to such inconsistencies. And these are not children we are talking about, these are educated grown ups.

If Umpires are to survive in cricket, they have to be above the fray. Umpiring decisions cannot be a negotiation between players and umpires. Today the center of the cricket broadcast - the commentary box, whose influence in contemporary cricket is vastly underrated, cannot be allowed to be the arbiter of virtue, quality or reality. The opinion of the former cricketer peddling completely unaccountable, no-consequence bullshit in the commentary box or newspaper column has to be seen to be just that. The authority of the Umpire has to be respected, especially when he makes the odd mistake. When James Anderson writes that "taking wickets can be hard work and it is frustrating when something you think you have earned is taken away from you through no fault of your own." one is not quite sure what to make of it. Yes of course it's frustrating. But thats part of being a sportsman. It is part of the sporting character to accept decisions. But lets not pick on England. India have been guilty of this too.

After his retirement, Australian umpire Daryl Harper spoke out about his final Test match as an Umpire at Sabina Park in 2011. His comments offer perhaps the most candid view from an Umpire's frustrations with the prevalent setup.

"Three players were reported, and that's above average. Two of them came into the umpire's room afterwards, and they realised they were wrong in what they'd done," Harper said. "They both apologised profusely, they were humbled, they came in and they expressed their disappointment with their actions, they didn't avoid the issue, they owned up.

"One, Darren Sammy, was reprimanded; Ravi Rampaul was fined 10% of his match fee, and those boys were apologetic. In the other case, the first player reported was Amit Mishra, and even on the fourth day of the game he was still adamant that he'd got a bad decision.

"That couldn't be confirmed either way by replays … but regardless of where it came from, for my money that guy missed the point. There's no code of conduct for good decisions or bad decisions. The code of conduct is there to test out the strength of character, and on that occasion his character failed to respond in the appropriate way, and four days later he still hadn't worked out that he'd breached the code of conduct and thought he was quite justified.

"For me that's very sad, and shows a total lack of [a grasp of] what the spirit of cricket is all about."

Harper's point about Mishra applies just as well to James Anderson and every other player who has recently complained publicly about umpiring, not just to dissent on the field of play.

Umpires need to reassert their authority by aggressively reporting players for violations of the Code of Conduct. The Code of Conduct is currently written broadly and columns like Anderson's could easily fall under the Code's catch all clauses. Even if the Umpires don't get a penalty, they should at least force players to face a hearing. If it is indeed the players job to play and the umpires job to umpire (as the oft repeated argument against walking goes), then comments like Anderson's in the middle of a Test Match are at odds with this dictum.

Part of accepting umpiring' decisions involves keeping one's frustrations about them to oneself. If the players don't understand this, then it is up the Umpires to make it clear to them. I hope they do so soon for their own sake.