Bat and ball / Frank Gregan / 15 December 2008 / Leave a comment

The days of David Shepherd standing on one leg may be long gone but have we really seen the end of cricket's more colourful umpires? Frank Gregan isn't so sure.

Cricket played at the highest level is intense and riveting and proved during the 2005 Ashes series that it can bring a nation to a standstill.

While the emergence of the Indian Premier League and the whimsical but minted Sir Allen Stanford hasn't quite put the game in the same fiscal league as Tennis, NFL or Formula One, cricket is no longer on par with beach volleyball and curling!

Many subtle changes have occured during recent years but one that has gone relatively unnoticed is that the umpires have taken on a new air of professionalism. They tend to be more......well, human! The days of Shakoor Rana and his tantrums are fortunately a thing of the past.

Remember David Shepherd standing on one leg whilst umpiring at the highest level? What other sport would have tolerated such nonsense? I always felt sorry for the batsman, concentrating on dealing with each delivery in turn. He would be completely focussed, no idea of anything going on around him apart from his duel with the bowler.

All of a sudden there are 111 runs on the scoreboard and Shep being the great believer in Nelson that he is takes it upon himself to stand on one leg. Call me Mr Picky but if I was an international cricketer playing at the absolute pinnacle of my profession I would prefer it if the guy who could determine if my innings was going to continue was, how can I put this? Sane!

But even today, are they all sane? We still have Billy Bowden and his boundary signals. He looks like one of those idiots in the nightclub who after a top shelf race thinks that his robot dance of the 1980's is the dog's undercarriage! Apparently Billy lives with his mother who idolises him. Mrs Bowden here's a suggestion, buy Billy a full length mirror for Christmas and make him watch himself in action. If he still thinks it looks cool get him to seek psychiatric help!

There's no doubt that since the switch to neutral umpires the standard of decision making has been emphatically improved. The one statistic I always quote when debating this subject with the old guard who believe the integrity of the game has always been sound is Javed Miandad's record at home. In a career during which he played in 124 tests Miandad was never given out LBW in a Test in his home country of Pakistan. The odds of that being a fair representation are about the same as winning Lotto and the Euro Millions in the same weekend!

An impartial umpire has been the best law change introduced in my lifetime. It has ensured that the integrity of the game is not called into question with 'homer' decisions whether real or imagined. Were there really unscrupulous umpires out there?

At a sportsman's dinner one night in Canberra I sat next to an Aussie umpire who was good company and had some great anecdotes. He was umpiring at Sheffield Shield level but his ambition was to become a test umpire. We were discussing the finer details of the LBW law when I asked almost rhetorically, "and the batsman always gets the benefit of the doubt?"

"Oh no son," he said with just a hint of sarcasm, "the Australian always gets the benefit of the doubt!" I'm sure he was only kidding!