Umpires as coat hangers?

In a perceptive chapter on umpires in Barclays World of Cricket — perhaps the most comprehensive book on the sport yet — journalist/historian Alex Bannister relates this wonderful anecdote to establish the significance of the gentlemen in white coats.
Batsman departing to pavilion: “That wasn’t out, umpire.”

Umpire: “No? Well look in tomorrow’s paper.”
Behind the umpire’s sense of humour was a complete understanding  of authority.

My favourite umpire was Piloo Reporter, the spunky Parsi from Thane. He once got into a panga with Imran Khan in Sharjah in mid-1990, when he signaled a wide from Aquib Javed. The next ball was again signaled a wide, which got Imran abusive.

Reporter’s sharp ears picked up the diatribe, and he walked up to admonish him. When Imran was unrepentant, Reporter, threatened to walk back to the dressing room and complain to the manager. A peace was brokered by Javed Miandad, and the match resumed after a brief stoppage in which the authority of the umpire was unambiguously reaffirmed.

Incidentally, Reporter had been handpicked by Imran as a neutral umpire for Pakistan’s Tests against the West Indies in 1986. But he was not an ingrate, simply an umpire in the classical tradition, in complete charge of play.

Alas, that seems in the distant past. Umpires today are an endangered species. Extensive use of technology and sundry additions like  match referee and third umpire have made field umpires virtually superfluous. If the recent ICC proposal allowing players to appeal to the third umpire against the decision of  field umpires is ratified in July, they could become extinct.

Kind of sad, but perhaps also inevitable. Innovative technology is also invasive and highlights ‘human error’ to an extent where it has become unacceptable - to spectators and more importantly even players. There is too much at stake - money, careers, spectator delight etc. In more ways than one, it has become a percentage game, which makes it imperative that the percentage of mistakes must tend to zero.

I remember watching Steve Bucknor, the most vociferous critic of the new ICC proposal, ignore the facility of a third umpire  in judging a run-out appeal against Jonty Rhodes when South Africa were playing India at Johannesburg in 1992-93.

TV replays showed Rhodes clearly out of his crease, but Bucknor ruled him not out. Rhodes went on to score 91 and saved the game for his side. India were out of the series thereafter.

Cricket has only become more tech-dependent since. Watch any batsman when he is dismissed — especially when it concerns a leg-before, a run-out or stumping —- and his eyes will be focused on the giant screen showing the replay of the dismissal.

It’s much the same in dressing rooms at the ground and drawing rooms wherever the match is being telecast.

The ‘opinion of the umpire’ (which actually meant that no other opinion mattered), has now been completely diluted. Slowmos, Hawkeye et al are acknowledged to give a more precise opinion.

Players who have got a ‘bad’ decision, rely on technology to prove their bonafides to their captain, coach, selectors. The most significant difference is in the matter of ‘doubt’. If technology can remove it, where remains the need for anybody to benefit from it.

The portents, I’m afraid, are not very good for umpires. They may still be around for a long while, but will it be in a decorous sort of way, like coat hangers, for bowlers and fielders to keep their caps and sweaters, I wonder.