Neutral, driven from home!
An umpire, by description, is a neutral person, whether he is home-grown or a foreigner. No umpire takes sides. Mistakes happen. The idea is not to repeat those mistakes.
Honestly, we never faced any pressure from the home players. None approached me to seek favours just because I was a home umpire. They knew I was fair to both teams and that’s how I gained respect. Players can nd out a good umpire from a bad one in due course of time. They never took any chance with me,” remembers Ramaswamy.
The move to have four Indian umpires for home matches does not excite Ramaswamy. “It is nothing signicant because it has been introduced due to the pandemic. Also, you would have to have home series for them to ociate. Of course, I am happy for them. They need to grab the chance.” For A. V. Jayaprakash, who ociated with distinction in 13 Tests, the move to have home umpires for Tests is good. “I think it is a golden opportunity for Indian umpires. I have always maintained the Indian umpires are better than the foreign ones. This is a Godsent chance and the home umpires will have to perform and prove to the world that they belong to this category.”
The Indian Premier League (IPL), feels Jayaprakash, has contributed in helping the Indians overcome their inhibitions. “Earlier, most of the home umpires would not communicate with the foreign umpires after the day’s play. It changed a lot with the IPL. The home umpires not only interact with the foreign umpires but the players and match referees too. I expect them to do well because they know the pitches and the conditions very well,” says Jayaprakash, who began his career with a fee of Rs. 5000 per Test. “All that fee would go in airfare,” he laughs.
A lot has changed from the time the Board gave preference to reports submitted by the visiting captain in appointing umpires for Tests. “It was not a good practice,” admits K. Hariharan, who made his debut at Lord’s when standing in the 2005 oneo Test between Bangladesh and England. “It’s a great opportunity for the Indian umpires. If not for Covid, I doubt if some of them would have had a chance to stand in a Test. If they prove their competence, there would be many more chances for them. I know if they make mistakes there will be a lot of noise by the visiting team. Whatever you may say, there is a dierence between standing in a rstclass match and a Test match.”
Explaining his point, Hariharan insists, “In Tests you have to cope with closein catches and also legbefore decisions because you are under constant scrutiny. You have to work hard in these areas because of the noise from the stands. I admit there used to be tremendous pressure and it would all boil down to how you handled the appeals. You have to be experienced and mentally very strong when you stand in a Test match and here the pressure would be added be
cause one of the teams would be from home. Mistakes will happen but you have to come back strongly.”
How did he handle the pressure in rstclass matches, say a Tamil Nadukarnataka or a Delhibombay contest.
“Any match I would make it clear not to try intimidating tactics with me. I would tell them to concentrate on their job and let me do mine. Let us not interfere with each other’s job. Black sheep will be there but then umpires are basically professional. Why would they spoil their careers by taking sides. No one does.”
On the quality of umpiring in India, a muchdebatable issue, Hariharan says, “Umpires learn and judge from making mistakes. There has never been a perfect umpire. The one who makes the least number of mistakes is the best umpire. In countries like England, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand they have a good system of evaluating the umpires. Not in India, unfortunately. I have always said that umpires should be evaluated by expert umpires and not match referees. Even the best players are not able to evaluate umpires because some of the best players don’t understand the laws of the game. The current rating system in India says that almost all umpires have gained 96 per cent marks. How can that be because the captains still complain that umpiring quality in India is not good. We have to change the system to evaluate.”
In contemporary times, umpires in India have come to be inuenced by players and match referees. As a Board ocial pointed out, “strong teams tend to gain from the umpiring decisions when playing against weaker teams. Is that fair?”
I remember asking Swaroop Kishen on how he dealt with pressure from the foreign teams, say negating a vociferous appeal from an aggressive bowler like Malcolm Marshall. “His eyes would become red when he was angry. I was never intimidated but I could not have stopped him from appealing. I would rmly say not out and then look the other way. He did his job by appealing. I did mine by saying no if I was not convinced. Why encourage a confrontation?”
An incident from the 19■2 Indiaengland Test in Calcutta is a glorious tribute to the competence of Indian umpires. Only wicketkeeper Syed Kirmani claimed a catch as David Gower played a cut o Ravi Shastri. The bowler had not appealed and Kishen raised his nger. Some of Gower’s teammates in the dressing room thought he had been done in by the umpire. They were in for a surprise when Gower reportedly remarked he had got a faint edge. Only Kirmani, Gower and Kishen could pick the sound of the nick and not even the bowler and close in elders.
It was a big change from another episode from the same series when an umpire from the South Zone was objected to and the BCCI acceded to the visiting team’s demand. The said umpire had failed to pick a leg bye because he was trying out his new bifocal spectacles. The visiting team was quick to nd aws and the umpire was not considered for any Test in the series. In fact, he never stood in a Test thereafter.
The opportunity created by the COVID situation allows Anil Chaudhary, Virender
Sharma and C. Shamshuddin to entertain dreams of a Test debut with Nitin Menon having stood in two. “Where there are no Elite Panel match ocials in the country, the best local International Panel match ocials will be appointed,” the International Cricket Council said in a statement. India has no representation in the Elite Panel and their chance could come when England tours India in January next year.
Not that all home umpires would give awless performances. A few were subjected to humiliation on the eld at the end of the match for some decisions which the visiting captain would have deemed “horrendous.’ There was this classic case of the English players pushing a Pakistani umpire into a swimming pool for his poor decisions in a Test.
One incident that stands out in a home Test happened at the Feroze Shah Kotla in 19■3 involving Viv Richards. The West Indian great talks of having received a warning that he was a “marked” man. He did not believe it. The next day he was given out leg before. It was a bad decision, no doubt. Richards returned to the dressing and smashed the crockery laid on the table. His teammates ed the dressing room and the incident showed the home umpires in poor light.
It is not back to a stage where the home umpires can make the most of the opportunity. “It would go a long way in conrming the fact that Indian umpires are competent. I expect good performances from the fourmember panel we have,” notes Ramaswamy. To help the inexperienced umpires, the ICC has added an extra DRS decision.
“It should help a lot,” says Jayaprakash, who was one of the earliest playerturned umpire in India.