Peter Robinson: Umpiring and scoring in Zimbabwe

Peter Robinson is employed by the Zimbabwe Cricket Union to oversee umpiring and scoring in Zimbabwe. He speaks to John Ward about his work and the courses he is running throughout the country.

Peter Robinson, by his own admission, was never a very good player of the game, but he has become a leading figure in administration and umpiring in Zimbabwe. He played a little himself at school and university, but spent much more time coaching and umpiring.

He worked in education for 27 years where he was heavily involved in schools cricket. He returned to teach at his old school, Plumtree, and coached their first team for a long time, before being promoted to deputy head at Chinhoyi and eventually head at Marondera, positions where there is little scope for coaching. He eventually left teaching and had 13 years in commerce before retiring a few years ago.

During his time in commerce he became involved in league umpiring, and was appointed to the national panel, officiating in matches involving first-class touring teams between 1986 and 1991. He eventually gave it up for family reasons. "I got to the stage where I was beginning to wonder, `What are you doing out here?'" he says. He decided he would rather be with his family, which now includes six grandchildren. "What I have been telling umpires continually, based on my own experience, is that if you are not really enjoying it, don't do it. You're not doing yourself a favour and you're not doing the players a favour. I had actually reached the point where I felt it was time to move on."

He has been involved in umpiring administration, at provincial and national level, for ten years. He is also a member of the Cricket Society of Zimbabwe, where he enjoys being involved in the activities, especially as quizmaster at the annual quiz.

"When I retired from commerce, this job as director of umpiring and scoring came up, so I decided to take it," he says. "The ZCU identified various areas that were of prime concern, apart from the administration of umpiring and scoring. The two most important areas that were identified were training and recruitment. We've enjoyed scant success, so I have gone in the field of recruitment, although there is an initiative to be launched shortly to recruit from schools level.

"The sad fact is that there is only one national player who has ever become a first-class umpire, and that is Don Arnott. It doesn't look as if that is a very fruitful source of recruitment; the players just don't seem to be interested. On the other hand, although recruitment hasn't achieved very much, we have done a lot of training over the last year, which has covered Mashonaland, including Mashonaland Country Districts - places like Marondera and Chinhoyi - Matabeleland, Manicaland and Masvingo. In January we are planning to do a follow-up in Masvingo and also launch a Scorers-Umpires Association in the Midlands. We will then have covered all of the active provinces."

Fiona Butchart handles the basic training for scorers, while Peter conducts the umpiring courses at two levels: the basic level aimed at the novice, and a more advanced course for senior school-masters and league umpires. Courses have also been run on the Duckworth-Lewis system, about which there is much ignorance, and the 2000 code of laws, emphasizing the major changes. The response from schoolmasters has been excellent, according to Peter, but from the league umpires it has been `a little disappointing'.

At the highest level Peter recently conducted a two-day training camp for the panel of Test and international umpires, which was `an outstanding success'. "We intend following it up shortly with a similar training camp for the first-class panel," he says.

Asked to give more detail about the content of the umpiring courses, Peter replies, "The basic course that I have designed is to give them instruction on the techniques of umpiring, and we deal with things like: when do you signal to the scorer, how do you move, where should you be standing - it's as simple as that. Then we go into more detail on the lbw and no-ball laws, which are two areas that seem to frighten the uninitiated umpire the most.

"On the more advanced course it's not so much a question of lectures as getting a flow of discussion going on various aspects of the law. With the Test and one-day international panel we've dealt with the technicalities of umpiring at that level, with the ICC playing regulations, which we went through in detail, with the objective of getting uniformity of interpretation among all our umpires who are likely to stand at that level. We got outside trainers to come in and deal with such matters as how one deals with stress, because particularly at top level stress management has become an essential factor. There is stress resulting from player reactions to decisions and also the pressure that emanates from the fact that these guys know that if they make a decision, the media are going to review it in slow motion five times and then decide a mistake has been made. If you allow that pressure to get to you, the mistakes are going to be multiplied. We had quite an extensive time that weekend given over to how we deal with this problem.

"We also conducted a team-building exercise over that weekend and we believe that's important as well, because there's the old saying that out in the middle there are three teams, the fielding team, the batting team and the umpiring team. The umpires need to learn how to deal with their colleague and how to liaise with him. There are some umpires who believe that you get out into the middle, shake your colleague's hand and then say, "Good luck, but don't forget you're on your own now." In a sense that's true, but really teamwork is essential."

Peter is well aware of the current lack of training aids available to him. "The one I am particularly keen on is building up a library of excerpts from real matches, where you can show a situation, freeze it at the appeal and then ask the audience: `Out or not out?' We can then turn it on again, see what the guy in the middle did and replay it - we can do that with lbws, bat-pad, caught behind, and run-outs, even, because even though the on-field umpire is not dealing with run-outs his colleague upstairs is, and he needs to be bale to freeze it at a certain point and ask, `Now has that bail moved or hasn't it? If it has moved, what moved it?' - which is also a very important question.

"So there is quite a lot of that to be done. We can build up our own library here [at the ZCU headquarters at Harare Sports Club] but I believe overseas these things area available through the Association of Cricket Umpires and Scorers. We don't want to reinvent them, but we should be getting some. These are the sort of training aids we should be investing in."

Peter is also aware that there is a lot of room for more practical work to be done, in addition to the vast amount of theory covered. "You actually set up a game situation with the umpires and then have everyone discuss it," he says.

Peter has also involved the CFX Academy in his programme and ran a two-day course on the laws with the students there. "That was a very interesting exercise," he says, "because of the response of the youngsters in the Academy. They asked a lot of very interesting and penetrating questions relating to the new laws, and also relating to situations they had experienced in the field. From the point of view of audience response, that was probably one of the best courses we have held.

"What I find encouraging is because of this initiative the Mashonaland umpiring association in particular and the other provinces to a lesser extent are now being inundated with applications for membership. My original thought was that you would have to recruit the guys first and then train them. We started the training, people heard about it and they have come flocking in, so the number of umpires here in Harare for instance has probably trebled over the season. How competent they are is a different matter. The problem is that you can train to a certain extent, but if an individual hasn't a fell for the game, no matter how much you hone his skills, he'll never become a really great umpire. A lot of the recruits are absolutely new to the game; a few of them have played a little, but not much."

Peter considers the ZCU has only just made a start in this area, and ongoing development is essential. "What everybody has to realize is that training can never end. Any individual, it doesn't matter how high he has got, who thinks, `I'm a fully qualified umpire now; I don't need any further training,' is deluding himself. So it has to be ongoing. We have totally revamped and revised the whole examination system. The scorers never had an examination system in Zimbabwe and we are now introducing one. The umpires' examinations have been rewritten, and we have an elementary exam for beginners, and intermediate and an advanced level. What I proposed to the umpires' association is that in order for an umpire to maintain his rating he should be required to attend a certain number of training courses during a year and also write a revision examination, so he does not become an advanced umpire for life - it is renewable by examination. I think that is one way to maintain standards."

Unfortunately Peter has resigned from his job, with effect from the end of February 2001, for personal reasons. In discussions with chief executive Dave Ellman-Brown, they have agreed it is essential that his work does continue, although a replacement has not yet been found. He has done a fine job and leaves the essential jobs of umpiring and scoring in Zimbabwe in a much healthier state than he found them.