England Cricket / Andrew Hughes / 11 February 2009 /

Being on the wrong end of a dodgy decision is annoying but do the ICC need to turn cricket on its head by emasculating umpires? If players are happy for the men in the middle to make the calls then surely we should leave it at that, says Andrew Hughes.

The First Test at Sabina Park will be remembered for that crazy final day when a bemused and rather morose looking England were blown away to the astonishment and jubilation of onlookers. But history can offer us some comfort. Fifteen years ago, a similarly ragged collection of Englishmen surrendered to Ambrose and Walsh in Port of Spain. Yet a few days later, they roused themselves for a stunning victory at Barbados that few had conceived of amidst the trauma in Trinidad. Can Andrew Strauss whip up his troops for a stirring comeback?

You can back England [3.2] to win the Second Test with the resurgent home side on [3.95] and the draw at [2.26]

Wickets were not the only thing England squandered in Jamaica. In the West Indies' only innings, they wasted their player referrals on appeals that hadn't a hope of success. Then Ramnaresh Sarwan was reprieved on referral because the third umpire, unable to employ Hawkeye's predictive function, couldn't see that the Steve Harmison delivery that smacked into Sarwan's pads would have hit leg stump. Last summer, Tilekeratne Dilshan had a similarly fortunate escape, this time because the third umpire was unable to use the Snickometer.

Nevertheless, in the six Tests during which it has been trialled, the player referral system has been reasonably successful, aside from a few delays and a little confusion. At Sabina Park, the referral process took around five minutes with neither players nor umpires entirely sure of the protocol. These teething problems can probably be resolved in time and when the trial is reviewed at the ICC meeting in May, no doubt solutions will be forthcoming.

But the very idea of player referrals is a step on a road, paved with good intentions, which will change cricket forever. The ICC believes that television companies are undermining the authority of the on-field official by frequently showing up umpiring errors. They are worried that cricket may be heading the same way as football, where the dissection of every contentious decision on live television has led to an erosion of respect for referees, where players cheat, scream and whinge with impunity and every Premier League game teeters on the brink of anarchy.

But football is a frenetic game in which interviews and analysis are conducted while tempers are still hot. Cricket is conducted at a slower pace. By the time the players have left the field, passions have cooled and it is rare to hear cricketers criticising umpires. Indeed, captains such as Daniel Vettori have made it plain that they are happy for the final say to remain with the on-field umpires. This, in fact, is where the authority of the cricket umpire derives from, not from his ability to get every decision correct, but in the willingness of players to accept those decisions, correct or not.

Yes, being on the wrong end of a dodgy decision is annoying. But is it so bad that we need to turn the game on its head? For punters, umpiring errors are a random factor, as likely to work for you as against you. For the rational fan, they are just part of the game, part of life. Cricket is a sport, nothing more serious, and if the participants whose livelihood is at stake are happy to let the umpires make the decisions then surely the ICC should leave it at that.

The alternative, is the very scenario that the ICC want to avoid. If you are guided by the principle that nothing else matters but making sure that every umpiring decision is correct, then logic will eventually lead you to conclude that all decisions should be referred. At that point, stripped of his decision making power, the on field umpire does indeed lose his authority. Premier League football style behaviour will begin to creep into the game and the ICC will cast about for a way to reassert discipline on the field, to no avail. By emasculating umpires, they will have weakened the foundations of the game and within a decade or two we will not recognise it.

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