A day with an umpire
Cricket is a team game where performance is the name of the game.
Just like batting bowling and fielding, umpiring also play a crucial
role in deciding the course of the match.
As an umpire of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, I was able to
officiate matches at Delhi, Chennai, Coimbatore and Mumbai. Umpiring
is a thankless job but at the same time it is a very interesting
profession also. My brother was a mentor, who took initiative to make
a class umpire in the circuit. The hit and run game of cricket makes
the umpire also to run here and there. You need lot of concentration,
patience and perseverance to be a successful umpire.
An umpire is the only single person who, alone can make or ruin a game
of cricket. If he makes it, your average cricketer takes the fact for
granted. If he ruins it, your cricketer grumbles, forgetting that, for
far too long, cricketers have paid too little attention to the
umpiring of their matches. The recruitment of umpires, especially at
lower club level, is often left to chance and the standard of umpiring
can thereby be unacceptably low. Apart from the familiar sight of
members of the batting side joylessly serving half-an hour stints, one
might find cricketers unfit through injury, social members with little
to commend them save a wish to oblige, casual spectators pressed into
service for the afternoon and willing enthusiasts, uninformed and
untaught, entertaining themselves without giving the players much
satisfaction. Retired players ostensibly the most likely potential
umpires, frequently makes themselves available but although their
experience provides invaluable background, the finer points of an
exciting are apt to escape them, as few players have more than a
passing knowledge of the Laws.
It is quite imperative to note that players learn by experience. When
Gary Sobers was asked to follow-on in West Indies in a match curtailed
by rain for 4 days, the leeway ought to be 150 runs and not 200 runs
as in the case of 5 day game. Gary was surprised but quickly learned
from the mistake. Boycott was once caught red handed for not knowing
a basic rule in Australia. Hit wicket rule is misspell and misused as
well. My brother was given out HIT WICKET when he was in the process
of taking a run and the bat fell on the wicket. That compelled him to
learn the Laws of the Game and he became one of the first rate umpires
in DDCA. It is all in the game. At times umpires forced to give
decision so that an outright win can be possible to attain points in a
league game. Again, if you give a star batsman out LBW, the fielding
side will look at you with a strange look as you committed a murder.
An umpire should be professional in the best sense of the word
"phlegmatic, unobtrusive, dignified, courteous of absolute integrity
and every prepared to discharge his duties fearlessly and impartially.
The good umpire is dedicated to the task of conducting a game so that
the players get the utmost enjoyment from it. This needs the highest
possible standard of umpiring and he devotes a portion of his leisure
to studying, refreshing debating points of law and reinterpretation
and improving his technique in every way seeking to ensure that he
becomes a master of his craft. The finest umpires are those who appear
to make the fewest mistakes. Even our best umpires can be mistaken in
fact, but the possibility of errors may be reduced by acquiring a
thorough knowledge of the Laws of the Game and by unremitting
concentration. Without the ability to concentrate, or the
self-discipline to attain concentration, all else is to no avail.
Once I was officiating a TNCA League match at Chennai and some of the
team's members were considered to be showing rough behaviour and go
the extent of beating opposite team players and umpires with cycle
chain, if something goes wrong against their wishes. As the match
ended the notorious team captain lost the match but shook hands with
me for my exemplary standard of umpiring. That saved me the day as the
match went up to the mandatory overs stage. Umpiring is really
thankless job.
