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| Three Coyotes head to Vancouver Olympics Phoenix Coyotes defensemen Zbynek Michalek and Sami Lepisto will represent their home countries in the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. bizjournals.com |
French court overturns Briatore's lifetime suspension Former Renault Formula One team boss Flavio Briatore had his lifetime suspension from motor sports overturned by a French court Tuesday. rssfeeds.usatoday.com |
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At least 30 Haiti soccer deaths in quake SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Caribbean soccer authorities say at least 30 members of Haiti's soccer federation, including an undetermined number of players, have died in the country's earthquake.... hosted.ap.org |
Vic Marks: Decisions drag umpires into the spotlight • Referral system certainly needs some tinkering• Jamie Jackson: Loneliness of the long-distance umpireThe umpire at cricket is like the geyser in the bathroom; we cannot do without it, yet we notice it only when it is out of order." Thus wrote Sir Neville Cardus, who has rarely been heralded for his plumbing expertise.Cardus was right about umpires, though, and we have noticed them all too frequently in recent weeks. Daryl Harper has attracted the greatest attention. He has been likened to Inspector Clouseau one minute, Frank Spencer the next and that is by the gentle souls who work for this organisation. Elsewhere, from the head of the ECB downwards, he has triggered more virulent abuse and endless exasperation.Harper's bizarre decisions have prompted all sorts of calls: for the abandonment of the Umpire Decision Review System and the even more reactionary suggestion that the use of neutral umpires for Test matches should be ditched. In Johannesburg Giles Clarke, during his fulmination at the Wanderers, declared that he would be perfectly happy for England to be umpired by a Pakistani umpire when they play Pakistan. In Australia, where they trumpet Simon Taufel as the best umpire in the world, many think it "tragic" that he cannot stand in an Ashes series (mind you, nor can Daryl H). Questions have also been raised about the make-up and the running of the ICC's elite panel of umpires.First, the UDRS. Harper has managed to be its most persuasive advocate and its greatest enemy in the space of 10 days. His howlers in Cape Town were corrected, a triumph for the system, his – let's be generous – misfortunes in Johannesburg were a disaster. This is no basis upon which to abandon the system altogether.There has been much talk of the principle that "the umpire's decision is final" and how it represents one of the absolute and inviolable tenets of the game – as if the game was designed for the benefit of the umpires rather than the players or spectators. The notion that the umpire's authority is constantly undermined by the UDRS makes little sense to me.Which of these two scenarios undermines the umpire's authority more? An appeal for lbw is granted without the UDRS in place. Within seconds the TV replays show that the batsman has hit the ball hard on to his pads. But he has to go. The game proceeds amid smouldering resentment. Or the same lbw appeal is granted, but on review is overturned when the inside edge is clearly demonstrated on the TV screen. The batsman is reprieved and the game proceeds without fuss. The answer, surely, is that the first scenario undermines the umpire more.What the system does do, which may not be welcome to all umpires, is this: it highlights which ones are good – in the South Africa-England series Aleem Dar and Steve Davis were outstanding – and which ones are not so good.Of course, there should be refinements. I like Daniel Vettori's suggestion that there should be just one review per innings. Once the players are educated this should eliminate the marginal review when they seek to sneak an lbw, or the token one, which is used at the end of an innings simply because there is one to spare. Alternatively, a team could be limited to four or five reviews per match. Caught behinds will always be trickier to determine than lbws, but nobody promised perfection. The more technology here, the merrier.Those seeking the abandonment of "neutral" umpires have very short memories, not just of the festering rows between England and Pakistan throughout the 1980s and 90s. There were other rows as well, in which the nationality of the umpire involved stoked the fires. No one accused the Australian Mel Johnson of bias when he gave John Dyson not out in Sydney in the Ashes Test of 1983 after a run-out appeal in which the batsman was missing from the TV replays, nor Lloyd Barker for giving Rob Bailey out caught behind in Bridgetown in 1990. But the subsequent furore would have been diminished if neutral umpires had made those mistakes.The advent of neutral umpires has reduced tension. It has also meant that it is very difficult for Taufel to stand in a Test at the MCG or for Ian Gould to stand at Lord's – though he may do so when Australia play Pakistan there this summer. This is unfortunate; it is not a tragedy. There must surely be enough decent umpires out there to retain the "insurance" of neutrality.We can legitimately question whether the ICC have all the best umpires and whether they have implemented the best system of deploying them. It is a lonely, arduous, potentially depressing job, to such an extent that some of the best umpires have rejected the ICC's overtures to join the elite panel. Usually they have been English. Peter Willey, Jeremy Lloyds and Neil Mallender, all good umpires, have been reluctant to commit themselves to the ICC. This is partly because the ECB are good employers; they all prefer the security, the relative comfort and reasonable rewards of working on the county circuit, augmented by the odd one-day international. And they like to see their families now and again.The challenge for the ICC is to devise a system that retains an elite panel, probably enlarged, but that encourages all the best umpires to join. Those umpires would no longer be required to be away from home for more than six months every year. This may be an expensive process, but in the long run it would be worthwhile and, as a result, we may be blessed with anonymous umpires again.England in South Africa 2009-2010CricketVic Marksguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |