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Are they neutral!
By S.R. Pathiravithana
The British, our former colonial masters invaded this island in the year 1796 and after a 151 year reign they left in 1948, but not before leaving behind a few legacies. The queens language was one and another was the game of cricket. The game of cricket now has become a collective national past time and almost brings the entire country to a grinding halt when our cricketers are at it in the middle.

With this kind of interest generated in the game, it is obvious that the end results of these games too are taken very seriously, especially after Sri Lanka became only the fourth country to win the coveted World Cup even ahead of England the very country that invented the game of cricket.

Since cricket became a big industry and came right in front of the arm chair in our sitting halls courtesy the television with a set of highly skilled experts who have more insight to the game, the game too took different expansions mainly in the behind the scene technicalities. Then the governing body of cricket introduced the elite panel of ICC umpires while the TV stations recruited a set of expert comentators who generally are people who have played the game at the highest level who sit there in front of their screen at the given venue analysing every ball that is bowled through the duration of the game and even thereafter, as a result even the average house wife now knows how each team, each player and mostly the umpires performed during the given day. This information has reached them through the eyes of experts who's job is to give their opinion on the run of play, This has resulted in cricket becoming the topic of the day in all walks of life.

Right now the biggest debate that is going on is, is Sri Lanka getting a raw deal at the hands of the Elite ICC umpires in their present series against England. The accusations are many. But the ICC introduction of the umpiring panel says: " The emirates elite panel of ICC umpires and referees introduced in april 2002 to ensure the highest possible standards and guarantee impartial adjudication. "

The very reason for the ICC to introduce international umpires and referees was that a section of the cricketing elite had reason to believe that home umpires tended to be biased and the visiting teams often were at the receiving end. But, has it worked ? Have the international umpires done a much better job than the home based umpires ? Or is it just that when a bad decision comes along in a match it is more legitimized because an international umpire is supposedly tagged with a label of being impartial as he has no patriotic reasons to be so.

Like during no other series played in Sri Lanka before, during the present series umpire bashing has become a common feature. The cry of the day is that this time it is the home team that has been at the receving end. For instance on the last day of the first Test match in Galle, England captain Michael Vaughan survived an appeal for catch in the slips off a ball that appeared to take off from glove, but, the umpire who had fluffed some earlier decisions in the same match was unmoved and at the end the umpire was proved to be correct and the ball had taken deviation off the batsman's shoulder. Later on in the day while the light was fading and England struggling for survival, they received two chances of leg before survivals courtesy Srinivas Vetkatraghavan from next door, and thus the game ended in a draw.

A very correct and very good decision. However in next test the same umpire did not have any doubt in ruling the Sri Lanka opener Sanath Jayasuriya out. This time too the ball apparently had not touched the bat , but, only the pads. Then the same umpire went on to rule batsman Thilan Samaraweera out when the ball was clearly deviating outside the stumps. Thereafter on the second day flabbergasted spectators saw him giving reasons to bowler Sanath Jayasuriya for negating an appeal for lbw when the experts at the press box could have pressed a red light on just to clear his doubts.

This I say because there are certain decisions that an umpire could consult the third umpire and a clean bowled is not among them. If there is an element of doubt an umpire does not have to hesitate. The fielding captain cannot force the umpires to take decisions, he is only permitted to send in his report after the match. All these decisions have gone against the host country. In this case what can the host country do? For that matter any team at all.

It is known that the Sri Lankan hierachy had requested the ICC not to appoint Daryl Harper for the present series against England as he has been involved in the last few Sri Lankan series of matches which were played and they were not happy with his performance, but, once again it was he whom the ICC appointed. Ironily this puts Sri Lanka in a very sorry plight! Where can they go or what can they do ? Are neutral umpires neutral? Is it worth having an elite panel of umpires at enormous cost if their performance is not going to take the game to a higher level.

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