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| Sunday, 4 December 2005 |
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The times when the cricket umpire erred ... by A. C. de Silva The umpire is a clothes peg at cricket matches and even on the hottest day must take charge of sweaters. The great bill O'Reilly, so the story goes, once gave a one-armed umpire his sweater and cap, O'Reilly appealed loudly for leg before. The umpire shook his head. Again O'Reilly appealed, this time for a catch at the wicket. Once again his appeal was turned down. His Irish paddy up, O'Reilly stalked back to the umpire, demanded his sweater and cap, and said: "Now you can use your hand when I ask again." Then there was the bowler who appealed for what might have been leg-before or catch at the wicket. The umpire turned down the appeal. "Well, how's it then for leg before?" asked the bowler. "Not out" said the umpire, having to report his earlier verdict and quite unnecessarily since an appeal covers all ways of being out. "Well then, what's left for me to appeal about?" queried the bowler. "Nothing," replied the umpire, "so let's carry on." Umpires the world over have one peculiar weakness. They are reluctant to play the law dealing with the no-ball when it concerns the bowler's action. Means must be sought to define precisely what constitutes a jerk or a throw. There is a stigma attached to any bowler who contravenes this law. Had it not been so there would be no earthly reason why umpires should be so chary about pulling up the elbowing vowlers. Legend has built up around certain laws of the game and certain of its ethics. It is not considered "cricket" to take a mean advantage of an opponent. For many years it was not done to run out a batsman at the bowler's end if he backed up too eagerly, and was beyond his crease before the bowler delivered. When the Australian batsman Brown found himself run out in a Test match against India because the bowler decided he was taking an unfair advantage, the event had repercussions all over the Commonwealth. For years batsmen have grown accustomed to taking this liberty without penalty. They have expected it receive a warning from the bowler well in advance - and then would promptly proceed to forget about it, trading on the fact that the bowler would not dare use such a means of dismissing a batsman. Then came the day of reckoning and the batsman does not appear to have an argument at all if he is run out, stealing the odd yard in backing up. If he does, and gets away with it, then he should not lodge any complaint about the bowler who steps the odd yard over the bowling crease before delivering. Umpiring at cricket matches is not an easy task. It calls dorimmense concentration by the individual who should be fit enough to last five days of a Test match. Test matches are fiercely fought out matches these days, with plenty of money been thrown in by sponsors and the umpires too have it tough with the players keen on seeing their side's win. There have been, however, many instances where umpires have erred because of intense pressure brought on them. Constant appealing for the slightest wrongful stroke by the batsmen or lack of concentration by the umpires that have led the game into unwanted problems like crowd invasion which results sometimes delays to the smooth working of matches. The feat of allowing one bowler to bowl consecutive overs is not unlike failing to count accurately to six, but also indicates a temporary breakdown in the logical processes. First bowler to get away with it was Australian captain Warwick Armstrong, who in a Test against England in 1921, completed the last over before rain interrupted play, then bowled the next one when play was resumed. Alex Meir, the New Zealand spinner, achieved his 'double' in the Wellington Test against England in 1951. He bowled the last over before tea and the first after. A third man to bamboozle the umpires in this way was E. W. C. Vriens, playing for Holland versus Denmark in 1972. Then in the Prudential World Cup in 1983, Viv Richards, playing for West Indies versus Zimbabwe at Wircest, returned to the wicket after a stoppage for bad light and took strike at the wrong end. He was out after two balls - but one wonders what would have happened had it been a tight finish. Least neutral Nottinghamshire wicketkeeper Ton Oates was happy to become an umpire at the close of his playing career, but was not altogether acclimatised to the need for neutrality when, in one of his early matches, he was standing at the bowler's end and saw the batsman hit squarely on the pads. How's Zaat? the bowler shouted and the bowler himself gave the verdict "out" and the umpire too went the bowler's way. Heartless verdict In a women's league match at Koge in Denmark, the new batsman was several months pregnant. On arriving at the crease, she asked the umpire for permission to bring on a runner. This was refused, on the grounds that her incapacity had not occurred during the course of the match. 11 balls an over If a competition were held to find the umpire most likely to forget how many balls had been bowled in an over, four men would merit serious attention. Each is on record as having allowed an 11 - ball over. G. H. Pinney was the unfortunate victim on one of these occasions. Batting for Dorset Rangers Vs Dorset Regiment, he was pleased to keep out five hostile deliveries from R.G.Shore and even more pleased to score a boundary off the sixth. Some of his pleasure evaporated when he observed Shore running in to deliver a seventh ball. This unnerving experience was repeated, and repeated. By the 11th ball, by which time the scorers were desperate for space in their books for another dot. Pinney was a demoralised man and his wicket was duly shattered. It later turned out that, when signalling the boundary the umpire had taken the first five coins out of his pocket - and round they went again. Phill Meech of Birstall managed to squeeze an 11-ball over past the umpires in a Central Yorkshire League against Hanging Heaton. The sixth ball was again the decisive one. It was lost in a garden, and this was enough to throw the umpire's abacus into confusion. Sportingly - or is this an example of Yorkshire humour? - the opposing batsman said nothing but made no attempt to score off the next five deliveries. Similar aberrations are known at country and schoolboy level. When J. M. A. Marshall was making his first-class debut for Warwickshire against Worcestershire in 1946, he took a wicket with his eighth ball and collected an unwitting bonus of five more deliveries. At Wellington College one hot afternoon sanity was restored to the scorebook only by the intervention of one of the scorers - who happened to be the son of the offending umpire. Again, eleven balls had been bowled. By way of a supplementary explanation we are told, that, in addition to the heat, it had been necessary to celebrate 'something or other' at lunch, and port had been passed round. Least obliging When the last over was called in a Yorkshire Council match at Boramall Lane in the 1930s. Sheffield Collegiate needed one run to beat their great rivals Sheffield United. A batsman was run out off the first delivery and the umpires declared that the available playing time had run out. With the decisiveness of medieval tax collectors, they pulled up the stumps and walked off. Back in the dressing-room, Collegiate fielded their most fluent diplomats, who eventually persuaded United that the only honourable course was to go and finish the over. They took the field, and with one more ball the match was completed. The umpires, needless to say put on faces of stone and remained in the pavilion. Most garbled call In a letter to The Times in 1935. Charles Ponsonby wrote: 'I was playing in a match last year, and as a bowler delivered the ball the umpire muttered "B-r-r-r-" and, after a pause, added: "I beg your pardon, I meant to say 'no ball', but I dropped my teeth." Most discussed decision In a first-class match in Karachi, a batsman from Sind Province was at first relieved to survive an appeal for leg-before by the home side's bowler. He was less delighted when the bowler refused to accept the decision and, furthermore, insisted on telephoning his father for a verdict (his father just happened to be the executive in charge of the local cricket association). The call was put through and in turn the bowler, the batsman and the umpire spoke to the bowler's father, each giving his version of where the ball pitched, this line, and which part of the body it hit. After listening to all three men, the father gave the batsman out. When he had taken his pads off, that unhappy man vowed never to play cricket again. |
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