January 05, 2008	Saturday	Zilhaj 25, 1428

SYDNEY, Jan 4: Despite several blunders by neutral umpires in recent games, the International Cricket Council (ICC) will not go back to fielding home umpires during Test matches.

Sunil Gavaskar, Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee, said the neutral umpire system eliminates the suspicion of bias.

“If a third country umpire makes a (questionable) decision, it won’t be as acrimonious as if a home umpire made that decision,” Gavaskar said.

“That (neutral umpires) will be there for a while. I know there is some talk about having only the best umpires come in, but rather than have any controversy regarding decisions, I think it is probably a lot better (to have the system),” he added.

On proposed use of further technology to help umpires, Gavaskar responded it was always on agenda but would be considered for adoption, only if found consistently reliable.

“Technology is discussed at every meeting because every year some new technologies come through,” he said. “Snicko wasn’t there a few years ago but came in, Hawkeye wasn’t there. There have been different technologies coming through but stance of ICC and that of the Cricket Committee has been fairly consistent in as much that decision, wherever decision is foolproof, you can go ahead and use it,” Gavaskar expressed.

“But where there is element of doubt, where it’s not 100%, then words ICC use is to ‘hasten slowly’ You don’t want to have a situation where technology is not 100% correct, you would rather have human error than technological error.”—Agencies