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| April 19, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 01, 1428 |
Umpires want ear-piece experiment scrapped
ST GEORGE’S, April 18: The International Cricket Council (ICC) had announced at start of the ongoing World Cup with much fanfare that during the event, the umpires will be plugged to a stump microphone with an ear-piece to enable them to detect the faintest of nicks.
But now it has decided to scrap the ear-piece experiment. The feedback has started to come now, and the on-field umpires have given big thumbs down to the concept, suggesting the ICC to dump the experiment as quickly as possible.
“All kinds of sounds keep coming in. After we come out of a match we are stone deaf,” said an elite panel umpire in disgust.
“We have this asinine situation where the batsmen are marking their guards, wicket-keepers thumping their gloves, close-in fielders adjusting their boxes and helmets, all types of words and encouragement to fellow fielders and it becomes a real pain.
“Indeed, there is so much sound coming from the stump microphone that you can't really pick up the so-called faint edge,” remarked the umpire.
“Earlier, the situation was better. We used to rely on natural sound and our eyesight to make a decision. Now it’s different.”
According to this respected umpire, all kinds of noises create the same sound on the microphone.
“This is the worst part. The sound from a bat is similar to the sound from pads or gloves. You can't really tell if it was an edge or it had gone from pads. Imagine standing in this heat of Grenada and being plugged in for eight hours in a day. It’s a bigger strain and if anything it can make umpires commit more mistakes then they normally do.”
Most of ICC’s technical experiments in the past have been similar disasters. It was decided during the Super Series in Australia a couple of years ago that umpires could even make their leg before wicket (LBW) ruling going by the evidence of the TV coverage.
“That too is not fool-proof at all. For example in Grenada in a game, Stephen Fleming was given out LBW to Chaminda Vaas. The hawk-eye showed the ball had swerved out on pitching and could have missed the off-stump.”
“But common consensus among us umpire was that the ball was actually coming in and the batsman was plumb in front of the stumps. But the hawk-eye would make the world believe that it was going out.”
It remains to be seen if the ICC would keep the umpires plugged to the stumps microphone in the last two stages of this World Cup. Even if it survives this World Cup though, it doesn't look plausible that this experiment would be persisted with for long.—Agencies
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