Simon Taufel does a Bucknor on Team India

Jul 30, 2007 Cricket

Team India would have had a smile on their face when for a change, Steve Bucknor was not one of the umpires officiating in the second Test against England.

Over the past few years, this guy, many would agree, has become the proverbial pain in the a** whenever India plays. The number of lousy decisions handed down by him are enough to fill a book on their own right !! Yet, at one time, I thought quite highly of him, in the same vein as Dickie Bird, David Shepherd, and of course, our own Venkatraghavan.

Before this series, Simon Taufel too had a decent reputation as an umpire, but right from the first Test at Lord’s, he’s been doing his best to tarnish that. Yesterday afternoon, having downed a sumptuous lunch, I settled down to watch what I hoped would be a full scale attack by Tendulkar and Ganguly on the English bowlers. Sadly, however, Taufel put paid to those hopes in quick succession.

First, he gave Tendulkar out, adjudged LBW to a ball clearly missing the stumps, and barely had that storm died down, when he thought Ganguly edged one to the ‘keeper and gave him out as well. The famed “snick-o-meter” was unable to detect anything, so one assumes Taufel’s sense of hearing is exceptionally acute !! Both these decisions were pathetic, notwithstanding Ian Chappell’s comments about batsmen not offering a shot being prime candidates for any leg-before appeal. I guess Tendulkar should take to wearing a shirt proclaiming, “Trouble follows me” !!

I also feel having a TV screen on the ground is becoming counter productive. The moment players appeal, some of them are already looking towards it, regardless of the umpire’s opinion. Worse, if the umpire has indeed screwed up, he becomes acutely aware of his “failure” in front of 50,000 people, and that incident keeps playing in his mind, due to which he then goes on to overlook even genuine appeals.

Making a mistake is acceptable, after all none of us are superhumans. Also, nobody faults an umpire when he has to give a really tough decision, even if given incorrectly. The reason we viewers, watching this stuff on TV, get really pissed off is when obvious decisions are not given, whereas those that have “not out” written all over them are, causing a lot of heartburn and debate.

The bigger problem is: To whom are these umpires accountable ? What action can be taken against them for goofing off repeatedly? Simply giving them an adverse report or taking them off the international panel would hardly help… take one out, and who have you ? There was a time one could rattle off the names of at least half a dozen good umpires, but alas, the cupboard lies bare now…

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