Domestic players criticise standard of umpiring in a BCCI meet

What’s the story?

The standard of umpiring has been below average throughout the domestic season, especially in the recently concluded IPL, was criticised by players in a BCCI meeting on Tuesday.

While leading Gujarat in the Irani Cup, Parthiv Patel lamented that the same set of umpires were repeatedly making mistakes. "We had discontinued the practice of the captains giving their report on umpires because the losing captain would mostly give a bad rating to the officials. But we may have to revive it now," said an official.

In case you didn’t know...

IPL 10 witnessed quite a few umpiring gaffes. The most absurd of all howlers was seen in a game between Mumbai Indians and Sunrises Hyderabad. David Warner smashed Jasprit Bumrah for a six in the last ball of the sixth over. However, umpires Nitin Menon and Nandan allowed Warner to take strike for the first ball of the next over despite the boundary. Neither of the two umpires noticed the error and surprisingly even the TV umpire YC Barde did not bring it to their notice.

The heart of the matter

The top domestic players of the country attended the meeting. Another issue they addressed was the playing of Ranji games at neutral venues. They called for the discontinuation of neutral venues for Ranji Trophy since it involved too much travelling and there was zero local interest which denied the Ranji players the publicity they need. The travelling also meant that the players weren’t in peak physical condition to play the games.

The likes of Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan, Parthiv Patel, Mohammad Kaif, Aditya Tare and Pankaj Singh put forth their views in the meeting but Sourav Ganguly, the head of BCCI’s technical committee was absent.

The issue of raising the match fees was also raised at the conclave.

What’s next?

In all probability, especially after all the umpiring howlers witnessed during IPL 10, the BCCI may announce new changes in their umpiring department, and make the criteria for umpiring more competitive and challenging.

Author’s take

Umpires are the most important players on the field. And if they are not doing justice to enforcing cent percent impartiality and vigilance, BCCI must bring in immediate changes in their department of umpires and ensure that all games are played fair and well.