Here is what Bob Woolmer has to say about the whole controversy regarding his comments about the umpiring in the VB Series. I think he has a fair point. It is indeed true that better teams and home teams do get the rub of the green on most occasions when it comes to close decisions.
Just to recollect a few horrendous decisions in recent times:
1) The way Steve Bucknor helped Australia save the Sydney Test in January 2004
2) The way David Shepherd gave a palpably plump Ricky Ponting not out in Adelaide on 0 when he went on to score a 240
3) The way Ganguly stood in total disbelief after David Orchard gave him out lbw although he was about half a kilometre down the wicket
And this is not just cribbing about poor decisions against India so:
4) The way Marcus Trescothick was given out at Kolkata in January 2002 when the ball had clearly pitched outside leg.
5) Even the best make mistakes - The way Venkat gave Mark Waugh out caught bat pad in the Chennai Test of 1998.
6) Also the dodgy decision by Javed Akhtar to give Graham Thorpe out lbw to put England out of the 1999 WC and India into the Super Six
Point is - it is not home country umpires that are the problem - let us assume all umpires are neutral - it is the poor quality of umpiring that is the problem. Let us face it - today there exist only 2 good umpires in the World - Simon Taufel and Rudi Koertzen - the rest are in varying degrees poor - now that Venkat has retired and Bucknor and Shepherd have gone from being pretty good to pathetic.
I would not concur with Woolmer entirely. In particular, I do not support his idea that the third umpire with technology at hand should have power to overrule umpires. What I think can be done to improve the umpiring, is utilize this technology to evaluate the performance of the umpires in an objective, unbiased and transparent manner. Currently, the captains rate the umpires on a scale of 1 to 10 (I think). This information is considered top secret for reasons unknown - although it not always remains so - remember Ganguly giving umpire Bucknow a 0 last year ?? Well, anyway insted of having this secretive and subjective assessment, why not have an open and objective one ?? Why not have a review at the end of every series which says that umpire A had to adjudicate on say 50 decisions and got 35 right, 12 wrong and 3 uncertain - or something like that. For certain decisions which are not conclusive even after the technology, the umpires could be given the benefit of the doubt or a probability value of the decision being correct could be associated with it.
Based on the performance of the umpires, the ICC can decide whether to continue with them or opt for new ones. Of course, those who have been dropped would be eligible for consideration in the future again by good performances at the first-class level and so on. A selection commitee could be appointed to make these decisions. So that they will use the stats so obtained as a guide in making their decisions. Just as players figures in first class cricket or their performances are a guide to selection in the national team, so will be the situation with umpires. Of course then if a very senior umpire has a really bad series he could still hold on to his place based on his reputation since there is a human element involved. However 3 or 4 bad series in a row will not be tolerated. The key idea here is make the numbers public; make that objective and then let the selectors follow a subjective procedure.
Of course something similar could already be in place (the way Asoka Desilva was shown the door after a series of poor performances is indeed heartening) - the main complaint would still be the lack of transparency in decision-making. We all know Steve Bucknor had a poor series Down Under last year - why not the ICC publish their figures and assessment to the public to check if they are on the same wavelength with their patrons ??
If anyone having anything to do with the bosses at the ICC are reading this, I would request them to please consider this suggestion seriously.
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Yes, not only can umpires make or break cricketers' careers, they toy with history. In the absence of Bucknor, India would have won a test series in Australia and they in turn would have relinquished their record of being unbeaten on home soil for a decade!
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