Make better use of local umpires – Ranatunga

By S.R. Pathiravithana

Arjuna Ranatunga

Sri Lanka’s World Cup winning skipper and present chief of Sri Lanka Cricket Arjuna Ranatunga feels that cricket-playing nations should employ more local umpires to stand at International matches.

Expressing his own sentiments the newly-appointed cricket chief said, “Taking the present status quo into consideration even the ICC elite umpires who are neutral seem to be making mistakes. In my personal view, I think they should employ two local umpires to stand at the matches while an elite umpire assisted by the match referee would guide the two umpires with dicey decisions that they are uncertain of.

“In this manner I feel that the local umpiring standards will also improve in the respective countries. Now see Sri Lanka and India despite playing in the highest division do not have an umpire in the elite panel. This means that there is stagnation among the local rankers.”

Ranatunga then expanded on his view. He said “The elite umpire is appointed by the ICC. Then the Match referee is a person who has played the game at the highest level and earned a certain amount of respect on his self as a player. They are the ones who will be assisting and guiding the local umpires through the game and assisting them in all decisions if ever asked for. At the same time the two ICC representatives will also scrutinize the performance of two local umpires. If the ICC representatives feel that there is an element of bias in any of the local umpires they will have the liberty to report them to the ICC and the ICC in turn will impose a ban on the local umpires (for one or two years) depending on the gravity of the mistakes. What I mean is that in an era where the players are banned for various matters why not umpires who have the advantage of making use of the modern technology and who play an equal responsibility in the final outcome of the game should not be penalised. The game may get a bit slower, but the whole act will get cleaner and the matches will have a better result”.

The mistakes made by the members of the ICC elite panel have been in focus in the recent past,. This includes the misinterpretation of the rules by umpires during the World Cup final between Sri Lanka and Australia and the last Test match played between India and Australia.