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Don’t blame the system for human error

Posted on | February 3, 2010 | 2 Comments

There’s been a lot of hot air spent discussing the referral system with some commentators saying it’s not fair because only two countries have technology and others don’t you can be out in one country and not out in another.

Well, life’s not fair is it? At the moment every Test played in the world is not entirely equal because they all have umpires who see things in different ways; some are more receptive to leg before shouts, others are ‘not outers’, so you never get a completely level playing field and all you can do is play by the laws as interpreted by the umpires. That’s a fact of life.

I accept the point that it would be beneficial to the game if the International Cricket Council who have pots of money paid for hotspot and the snickometer for every Test match but currently they are refusing to cough up and leave it to the host broadcaster. Only Sky, in England, and Channel 9, in Australia, have the whole bag of tricks but if umpires are as incompetent as those recently in South Africa it doesn’t matter how much technology is available. The failures in the England-South Africa series were human errors and not the fault of the system. Daryl Harper couldn’t even turn the knob up on his equipment and let’s be clear Graeme Smith was given not out by the on-field umpire, Tony Hill. The ICC should be asking Hill if he’s deaf because everybody else heard the nick clear as a bell. Two people made human errors, not the system. It can be improved but the profit driven ICC doesn’t want to pay although I think that eventually they will.

If we go back to the old system all we are going to get is huge embarrassment. At Johannesburg there were 30 cameras on the ground and when mistakes are made, as they inevitably are, the TV people are going to show them time and time again and leave the umpires with very red faces. TV showed that AB de Villiers nicked a ball and was given not out but England had no reviews left, more human error.

The problem is umpires like Harper who think we should go back to the old system, they think they are like God and don’t make mistakes while the truth is that they do. In the four match series in South Africa 30 per cent of decisions were overturned on review and remember the third umpire can only reverse a decision, in the words of the ICC, if “there is a high degree of confidence that the on-field decision was wrong.” Today’s umpires may or may not be better or worse than those in my playing days but in my time they didn’t have the close scrutiny of the Television cameras to show whether they were right or wrong. As players we may have thought we were victims of injustice but we couldn’t prove it!

I’ve never changed my view that the international cricket scene would be better off if more ex players became involved in umpiring. They know all the dodges and what to look for and if you’ve played with some of the big names in the world you have status and credibility. The problem is that the ICC want only full time umpires and if you’ve played the game for, say, 15 years you’ve been away from wife, girl friend and /or children enough and don’t want to live in hotels and out of a suitcase any more. It’s a sure recipe for major disharmony in the home if you set off for another ten years on the road. If ex-players were allowed to be part time and do only a five or six week stint twice a year it would prove more attractive to a lot of guys who have turned down long term contracts with the ICC because they value their home life and that’s to the detriment of the international panel of umpires.

So what we get are people who have never been in the limelight as players for county, state or country, who lack cricketing credibility on the big stage and want to be a ‘colourful character’, like Billy Bowden of New Zealand, when what we want is the best umpires. We should have three times the number of umpires with first class cricketing experience spending less time away from home.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Don’t blame the system for human error”

  1. Hassan
    February 5th, 2010 @ 11:34 am

    I agree completely that the system cannot be at blame. The errors made by the on-field umpires were appaling for that level of international cricket. The ICC should be investigating why these huge errors were made by the umpires rather than focus too much on the review system.

    The review system has it’s critics but it was built to highlight and overturn human errors. With further training of the off-field umpire this should come along.

  2. Dean Measor
    March 12th, 2010 @ 1:35 am

    The umpiring was terrible in Australia 2009-10 and has been for a long while.
    What is the answer though? it is so frustrating.

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