Kumar Dharmasena - egg on the face

The Umpires Committee assigning umpires for home international matches rushing former Test cricketer turned umpire Kumar Dharmasena into the first ODI between Sri Lanka and India could turn out to be another bad egg on the face.

For, Dharmasena, who ruled out Sachin Tendulkar LBW in controversial circumstances where it appeared he bent to the pressure of the fielders vociferous appealing, could well have made a mess of his first international assignment. Like in the case of fellow umpire Asoka de Silva who found himself sidelined for sometime following a similar bad decision also again the world's leading batsman - Tendulkar in a Test match, Dharmasena and the local umpires committee that rushed him ahead of other umpires who were senior to him could well find the former cricketer get blacklisted. For the ICC body reviewing umpires takes a strong view of how new entrants to the job perform.Of course, the bottom line is that Dharmasena's decision on replay showed that the ball was outside the line of the leg stump and the question is whether he had erred or let the appealing by the Sri Lankan team get the better of him.

Like the cricket mess at the cricket board the umpires committee too seems to have messed up by not following routine procedure of first baptising Dharmasena to officiate in a series between Kenya and Zimbabwe without rushing him for a home match in his very first assignment.