'Umpires have to call the chuck' - Dalmiya

Jagmohan Dalmiya, the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, has given umpires carte blanche to call bowlers for chucking in domestic cricket. In a meeting between the board members and the five zonal representatives of umpires in Mumbai, Dalmiya was emphatic in his views and said, "There is no place for chucking in Indian cricket. The umpires have to call and not report it to the referees. Chucking is like a curable disease, we are here to improve the game and not to criticise players."

Many experts, such as the Australians Ian Chappell and Bob Simpson, have recently spoken about how the umpires should be empowered to call the bowlers for their dubious action and Dalmiya voiced a similar sentiment. "The umpires need to come out boldly and freely for Indian cricket to be on the right track."

Just a few days ago, Sunil Gavaskar had stressed the importance of improving umpiring standards at home and Dalmiya felt the same. "Stagnation won't do. You need to think on improving. Like players have net practice, the umpires also need to have net practice. There will be two umpires - a combination of senior and junior umpires during net practice. The junior umpire will adjudicate while the senior will be keeping an eye on the proceedings."

There was also a proposal for having an academy for umpires and referees, with cutting-edge technology at their disposal, apart from a research wing that will look into various laws of the game. There has also been a request from the umpiring fraternity for a director, who will monitor standards. "The director would evaluate umpires' performance on the lines of David Richardson, the ICC's umpires' manager, who evaluates all the umpires by checking their videos."