Crucket

Wouldn’t it be most fair for umpires to tend towards giving greater benefit of the doubt to a struggling team? I think it would, though I suspect in reality the opposite tends to happen. I mean, the Aussies never frickin’ seem to have their appeals turned down.

It is frankly inconceivable that Tendulkar’s catch off McIntosh was given without consultation with the third umpire after the precedent with Ryder’s catch off Dhoni (for which the on-field umpires conferred and consulted with the third umpire before giving it not-out). Both catches were equally dubious and the umpires should have treated them the same.

But what can you do but grumble. If the referral system was in place, nothing would have changed. Even though Tendulkar’s catch was equivalent to Ryder’s, if it had been referred by McIntosh, the third umpire wouldn’t have changed the on-field umpire’s call. It would be easier in a way however to be able to complain about been done in by “the system” than to feel hard done by inconsistent umpiring.

I’ve wondered, does the umpire communicate with the scorers? Does the umpire ever have to correct the scorers when they get the manner of dismissal wrong in cases where, say, the batsman might have been out caught, lbw or even stumped?

I got thinking about this because of something I noticed in the reports on last night’s ODI on TV3 regarding Sehwag’s dismissal. The early report talked about an “unlucky Sehwag”, which I take to refer to him being given out caught when he hadn’t hit the ball, as recorded in the scoreboard: c McGlashan b Butler. (Cracker of a ball by Butler, incidentally.) A later report however had Butler “trapping Sehwag in front”. Could that have been the umpire’s actual call?