D Green: Testing Times Here To Stay For Umpires (02 Jan 1996)

Electronic Telegraph Tuesday 2 January 1996

Testing times here to stay for umpires

Disputed Atherton dismissal highlights problem in modern game. David Green reports

THOUGH the result of the fourth Test between South Africa and England might have hinged on Cyril Mitchley`s decision to give Mike Atherton out caught behind in England`s first innings, the pressure on umpires these days is immense and players must expect more errors than their counterparts of earlier years.

Television replays showed that when England`s sheet anchor, then 72, aimed to leg-glance Paul Adams, the ball comfortably missed the bat but flicked the pad en route to Dave Richardson`s gloves.

This was tough on Atherton, on England, and, not least, on Mitchley, a fine umpire who was later to learn, again from replays, that he had earlier given Atherton not out caught behind when the ball had hit glove rather than forearm.

But, as Christopher Martin-Jenkins wrote here, players "no longer help umpires. They appeal when they know someone has not hit the ball, they no longer walk when they know they have".

That this attitude has become common at Test level, in clubs, and even in schools, shows how much things have changed since the expression, "It isn`t cricket" was commonly used to describe ungracious or underhand conduct.

This is not to imply that the modern cricketer is morally inferior to his counterpart in the past, merely that the ethos of the game has changed over the past 30 years.

In the third Test between South Africa and England at Newlands in 1964-5, Ken Barrington, on 49, having thin-edged Peter Pollock to wicketkeeper Dennis Lindsay, was given not out but nevertheless strode back to the pavilion.

The assumption in those days was that if a batsman did not walk he had not hit the ball

Such incidents were not uncommon. As a young amateur in the early Sixties, I was severely dressed down by Lancashire`s tough senior pro, the Australian Ken Grieves, for waiting to be given out to a low leg-side catch at the wicket.

"Did you hit that?" the big Aussie asked. "Yes," I piped. "Why didn`t you come off then?" he inquired. "I wasn`t sure it carried," I protested. "Their keeper appealed," he said. "Are you calling him a crook? Don`t do it again. We don`t want Lancashire to be known as a team of cheats."

Today, that exchange seems as remote as some passage from a tale of mediaeval chivalry, but that was how it was. No professional cricketer wished to be seen to deprive an opponent of his honestly earned reward and he took the honesty of his opponent for granted.

The assumption in those days was that if a batsman did not walk he had not hit the ball and he would be given not out. Some, inevitably, abused the system, but they were mercifully few.

Reasons for the shift away from what was almost a code of honour are various. An important one was the influx of gifted overseas cricketers into the county game following the relaxation of registration rules in 1968.

Australians and South Africans flocked into our domestic game. They, though not West Indians, so far as I am aware, have rarely been walkers. Sir Donald Bradman himself was a great believer in leaving all decisions to the umpire.

Gloucestershire`s great South African, Mike Procter, said umpiring abroad was so ropey that if a player, who was likely anyway to be seen off frequently by bad decisions, also gave himself out he would be playing under severe handicap.

Only in England is there enough cricket played to support a body of full-time professional umpires. Procter and other overseas players acknowledge the expertise of English umpires but see in that all the more reason to leave all decisions to them.

This sort of influence, combined with improved television coverage which confirmed to players that umpires can be wrong, dissuaded more and more cricketers from walking.

Few walk these days. Indeed, with prize money available in all competitions, a walker risks the wrath of colleagues whose financial welfare he may jeopardise.

Worcestershire`s Tim Curtis upholds the modern consensus of leaving everything to the umpire. "But that means that sometimes batsmen stay in when they are really out. What they mustn`t do is make a huge fuss when they are wrongly, as they think, given out."

The modern practice is logical, but players thereby lose an advantage enjoyed by their predecessors. In the past, with umpires under minimal pressure, their minds were clearer and less stressed when considering lbws, stumpings and other modes of dismissal.

Sadly, though, time moves only one way and we shall not see a return to the days when an umpire, facing a difficult decision, could confidently wait for the batsman to show him, by walking or staying, whether the ball had flicked glove or wrist on its way through to the wicketkeeper.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (http: www.telegraph.co.uk)