Indian Cricket and Match Referee

Indian Cricket and Match Referee

Entire cricketing world is respiring again with relief as the Indian tour to Australia gets resumed yesterday with the practice match at Canberra. Fears of division among the cricketing nations, if not removed, at least went under the cloud cover of suspects till the ICC appeal commissioner decides the fate of the charges of so called racial comments, framed over the Indian spinner Harbhajan, by the Andrew Symonds and other Australian players during the Sydney Test of on going series.

Cricketing world is sounding with some voices of bowing of ICC before the BCCI on this controversial issue but if you look into history evidence will prove, non reasonable special behavior of match referees, going harsh with Indian or rather with the players from the sub continent always provided with a reason for the clash between BCCI and ICC. Look at the present issue, there were no audio / video proofs and even other evidences were not even sufficient to issue a warning for Harbhajan but match referee Mr. Proctor decided a three match ban for the Indian player.
This action of match referee prompted to look at some of the post records of the same person. In the year 2003 he conveniently over looked at the clash of Birayan Lara and Steev Waugh at Antigo but not hesitate to issue one match warning for the Indian captain Sourav Ganguli at Brisbane during the last Indian tour to Australia for the slow over rate bowling 9 over short, even there is provision of curtailing the match fees in the situation [For players 10% and for captain 20%] but Proctor prefer to go with level two offence and wormed Indian captain about the extreme punishment.
The same match referee Proctor went on to pose a five match ban for the past Pakistan Captain Rashid for making an appeal for a catch not taken properly against the Bangala Desh but at Sydney he prefer to keep quite when Sourav Ganguli was declared out by the way of catch taken in disputed manner by the Australian fielder Clarck not only this but he also over looked the appealing of Australian captain Ricky Pointing for taking improper catch. History will never forget the Oval Test between the Pakistan and England, where the issue of ball tempering gets more complicated shape and structure with the role played by Mr. Proctor in the same capacity of match referee.
The biggest dispute of the history between the ICC and BCCI was the 2001 Port Elizabeth issue, here once again the match referee Mr. Mike Denis was the accused of providing a space for the clash by banning six Indian players including the mighty Sachin Tendulkar. Mike Denis proposed a ban for Sachin for so called charge of ball tempering, Captain Sourav Ganguli for not keeping the players under control, Virendra Shewag for excessive appealing and one match suspended ban for S.Das, Harbhajan and Deepdas Gupta for the same reason of excessive appealing.
Hopefully the appeal commissioner will look into matter with a justifying vision and Harbhajan will come out spotless from allegations of so called racial comments. Indians have a long proven tradition of tolerance and fighting against the racialism but surely all will go behind the memories, rather out of cerebral hemisphere, if the self respect and national pride of Indians is challenged with an unnecessary and non proven blame. I am concluding this with instead of looking at dispute as the war of supremacy between ICC and BCCI or with the market oriented vision, look as the thing of national pride, honor and blame on attitude because this will not help to see and understand the dispute in true sense but will also prove help in reaching to proper and justifying decision and keeping the integrity of cricketing world intact.

Cricketing World after Sydney summit

Cricketing World after Sydney summit

A new chapter has been started in the history books of the world cricket. Sometime in the futures this might be called as the effects of Indo – Australia Test match at Sydney. The cricketing achievements like the 16th successive win by Australian team, 38th Test century of Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar, 29th test century of Haiden etc. will go in the darkness of background generated from the unfair partial and one sided decisions of umpires Steeve Buckner and Benson. Even the TV umpire [third] was not hesitated for being the part of non rational and non justified umpiring as he refuse to declare Australian Batsman Andrew Symond out stumped even when the TV coverage was clearly showing that batsman was not in the crease when bells dislodged by the Indian wicketkeeper M.S. Dhoni. In this atmosphere ICC match referee had also played his part not only justifying the catch of Sourav Ganguli taken by Clarck, where as the reply made it very much clear that catch was not completed as with the falling of the fielder on the ground ball went on to touch the ground, but also went on recommending a three match ban on Indian spinner Harbhajan for so called racial comment “Big Monkey” for Australian player Andrew Symonds, though neither there were any audio/video evidence nor the ground umpires supported the blame.

ICC later on, under the pressures of Indian players and BCCI, who threaten to call off the tour, agreed to prevent further participation in the series by disputed ground umpires and allowed Harbhajan to play in the series till the ICC chief match referee look into matter. Though for a time being things seems to be settled down and it appears that series will go according to predefined schedules but that will happen only if ICC reach to a decision within next seven days, the ultimate time given by the Indian players. If ICC fails to resolve the issue within time limit or the Appeal commissioner upholds the decisions of match referee there are more chances that Indian players will refuse to be further part of the series and might BCCI will also decide in favor of calling the tour off.

I am being a strong positive minded person hence even these most dark situations are the brightly shining one for me, you surely will agree with me when we together will have impacts of all this on the cricketing world. Technological excellence has provided a space for the highlighting the mistakes committed by the field umpires. Like the Tennis we can’t allow to umpires to stand on the ground just for calling the over and let the other decisions be made with the help of technology. I am also not agree with upcoming demand of challenging umpires decision by the captain as this will result in loosing the friendly spirit in which game is being played. I would like to increased active participation of ICC match referee, who is at present there just to relax and once a while impose a fine for slow bowling rate or helps the ground umpires in deciding the number of over in a rain curtailed match and seldom be the part of controversy like the Sydney test match. As the ground umpires are observing the match without the help of technology so they are bound to make mistake and help to create situations resembling with Sydney test hence my suggestion is that match referee must be given powers of rectifying the human mistakes committed by the field umpires. Whenever an appeal is made by the fielding side, the decision of field umpires must be reviewed by the match referee within next five minutes and in case of mistake batsman should be called back or called of the ground accordingly. This will not only release the tension of field umpires but will make the game more fair and interesting. As for as the front foot No ball is concerned on the terms of tennis a sound activated system can be activated.