Umpires and Match Referees need the support of the Administrators

Not all that long ago the International Cricket Council introduced independent umpires to Test Matches on the grounds that any umpire from a country taking part in the match might be accused of bias. That brought cricket into line with rugby and football and was welcomed by the players and the administrators. Today India has stated that Steve Bucknor was biased against its team, that his decisions in this and previous matches clearly favoured the Australians. When the Pakistan players refused to continue the match against England at the Oval they accused Darrell Hair of being biased against them, as had the Sri Lankans when Hair no-balled Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing. So much for players accepting the decisions and the independence or neutrality of the umpires!

All umpires would agree, I am sure, that they are fallible and make mistakes. However, for them to be accused of being biased is tantamount to slander. What is their employer doing to support them against these charges? Sadly not enough!

1. Darrell Hair has been told that he must undergo remedial training before he can be considered again as an umpire at the top level. This concession was only made after Hair took the ICC to court. He may have acted insensitively and prematurely at the end of the match at the Oval, but he did apply the Laws of Cricket. He may have made some poor decisions during the match and in other matches involving Pakistan, but where is the evidence that he was biased against them?

2. Darrell Hair has not umpired in a game involving Sri Lanka for eight years.

3. Steve Bucknor has been removed from standing in the third Test Match between Australia and India in Perth. Malcolm Speed, the ICC Chief Executive Officer has insisted that the decision was made for the good of the game, not to appease India. “We could have taken a confrontational tone but we took a diplomatic approach," he said. "We have got an international sporting incident where countries are polarised. What we are seeking to do is avoid having that turn into an international crisis.”

Several senior umpires are privately very upset that the game’s administrators at international or county level do not support them sufficiently. Umpiring is becoming a thankless task and the attitude of players and Boards towards them is increasingly hostile. Television replays show their mistakes to the world, players pressurize them more and more, there are derogatory comments made about them in the media and, in the case of these two umpires, they cannot rely on their employer, Cricket’s governing body, to back them when they are slandered.

Match referees also need support from the ICC. They too are honest men doing their best in a match, albeit from a distance and usually behind a plate glass window until they have to come face to face with the players and officials. They are expected, as are umpires, to be strong but understanding in their dealings with players. They are given authority to conduct investigations, hold enquiries and impose sanctions on players who step outside the required standards. In Sydney, Mike Procter was asked to investigate an alleged case of racism, which was only heard, apparently, by three or four players. Whether he has taken the right decision is not for me to say, but presumably he was convinced enough by the evidence produced to accept the word of two Australians against two Indians. The real problem with “sledging”, whether of a racist nature or not, is that it goads the opposition, as it is intended to do. The macho approach always escalates and leads to confrontation.

It does appear that ICC cannot win in this situation. If the Council supports the Match Referee, India has threatened to return home. If it overturns the decision, it is undermining Mike Procter, its own employee, who has undoubtedly been told to take strong action in cases of alleged racism. Nevertheless the ICC cannot duck the issue and its decision will not be easy.

Cricket has always been based on a number of unwritten tenets, which were written for the first time into the Preface of the Laws of Cricket in 2000:

a. Cricket should be played not only within its Laws but also within the Spirit of the Game. Any action which is seen to abuse this spirit causes injury to the game itself.
b. The umpires are the sole judges of fair and unfair play
c. The Spirit of the Game involves Respect for:
i. your opponents
ii your own captain and team
iii the role of the umpires
iv the game’s traditional values
d. It is against the Spirit of the Game to direct abusive language towards an opponent or umpire (It is not only racist comments that need to be stamped out of the game!)

Unless the governing bodies of the game throughout the world embrace these points and accept the authority of the match referee and the umpires, the game of cricket will deteriorate. Test Matches must be staged in a spirit in which both teams show respect to their opponents and to the umpires. All governing bodies should not only sign up to that but also understand that, on occasions, their team will need to be reprimanded, if they overstep the mark. The captains should show the way and understand their responsibility in defusing potentially inflammatory situations. Another major part of the Preface to the Laws is that “The captains are responsible at all times for ensuring that play is conducted within the Spirit of the Game as well as within the Laws”. It is important that ICC stands firm and stresses these points. It cannot afford to let the Spirit of Cricket wither.

This unseemly and petulant situation taking place in Australia is not doing any good for Cricket. A greater use of technology might assist umpires in making some of their decisions and this should be explored further. It is of the utmost importance that the senior administrators are strong and supportive of the men in the middle, the umpires, and the man overseeing their control of the game, the match referee. Ultimately the way in which the game is conducted is in the hands of the captains and the players. They have a responsibility to play fair but hard. They do not, and did not throughout the history of the game, always get things right and now is the time for the leading players in the world to set the tone for the rest of the cricketers who follow their example.

Roger Knight