Simon Taufel, the Australian umpire ranked the best in the world over the past four years, has revealed he could walk away from the game when his contract expires on March 31.
The news would be a huge blow to the International Cricket Council, with the spotlight on umpiring standards burning more fiercely than ever. Last month, Steve Bucknor was in the eye of another storm when the ICC removed him from officiating any further in Australia’s series against India. And yesterday, during the fourth match of the CB Series, Rudi Koertzen gave Adam Gilchrist out lbw despite the left-hander apparently edging the ball.
“There is lots of room for improvement with training and support at the ICC level,” he said. “It’s challenging.”
Source:CricInfo ICC have to seriously think about introducing some form or shape of technology to help build a better relationship between the umpires and the players. With the amount of game that is getting scheduled in different parts of the world under the watchful eyes of many to the distribution of umpires for each game and the limited number of elite from the elite panel to choose from, with Simon Taufel topping the ranks, the delicate effects are going to come in large numbers as time progresses. ICC has to be able to step in, intervene and have the power to treat this process in a manner that umpires don’t have to take all the glut in case of one bad decision, which, in the whole context of the match, is very important.
Thread focus: Should ICC protect it’s assets? What are the repercussions of disregarding the important elements that constitute the very body of cricket?
Simon Taufel giving up international umpiring will be a loss, but, at the end of the day, he is just one man. He will leave at some point, anyway. I agree with him. The travel responsibilities of an international umpire are just huge and much worse than the players.
International cricket has a bigger problem. Lack of top level umpires. Part of the reason is that in any international cricket match, with millions of ppl following the game in the stadium and on their television sets, the two guys most ignorant about what actually happened in a split second, are the two guys wearing the ties of an umpire on the ground.
There are only two ways to balance this situation. Either dumb down the audience (stop giving them snickometers, hawk-eye, slow replay etc), or give umpires the access to all such technology. Best way to begin the process is to give more powers to the 3rd umpire. The dude sits up there and is pretty much twiddling his thumb all day. He knows when a wrong decision is given, and is still powerless to do anything. Make him useful. Give each team's management three challenges during each innings. That will bring accountability as well as reduce any time wastage in redundant challenges.
The whole aim should be to minimize (if not eliminate) mistakes from umpiring decisions. Simple as that. The sooner ICC gets off the misplaced high horse ("oh!! we can't dilute the authority of the field umpire otherwise Earth will fall") the better. They are killing the motivation for people to get into umpiring. Who would want to be in the middle of the storm?
Give each team's management three challenges during each innings. That will bring accountability as well as reduce any time wastage in redundant challenges.
This is a great idea. I totally second that and I think the ICC will think along those lines. It worked out great for the NFL!
they need way more umpires
i agree with taufel, umpires dont have home games, they are constantly travelling, its very stressful
the 3 appeal system will help get pressure of them
and about the whole bucknor issue, i dont know why an experienced man like bucknor cant understand why he was 'dropped'. he was in such terrible 'form' and given his history with india, it would have brought more attention to him than the game itself which i think would have been pathetic
But in only year there is a huge vaccum that is created with the departure of Lara, Inzi, Bond, Gilli, Warne, McGrath and many others. Now the top empire is going away for sometimes. ICL/IPL are one of the reasons for mass retirements in one year.
I think he will be back in a decade when his kidz will be all grown up. He will be around 50 and will enjoy till retirement like Bird and Shefford.
I hope the new blood in almost every team of the world will produce the same charm in Int'l cricket as it has been for 130 years.
Ashis Ray, during the broadcast of the ongoing CB series, added the following line of thought in regard to this exact question put to him. He described that ICC should have started a process 10-15 years ago of grooming young umpires and bringing them into the International arena at this stage of the game, a stage where top umpires are either being forced out by their employers or those who are on the brink of hanging up their boots. He also made a mention of technology as one of the points of conversation.
Even if ICC would have 'started to groom' the young ones many years ago, would they not still fall under the same block, under constant criticism and the risk of being thrown out by power or otherwise? It is not that the umpires are not humans; simply put, the power needs to be slapped into the hands of technology.