CHENNAI : India's tour of Australia has been incident free so far, but Day 1 of the second Test came close to witnessing a controversy.
India believed a run out appeal against Tim Paine should have gone their way as one camera angle suggested his bat had not crossed the line.
Another suggested the Aussie captain mi ght have just crossed the line. Eventually, third umpire Paul Wi lson let Paine continue as he told the umpires there wasn’t enough evidence to show the bat had not crossed the li ne.
The decision took everyone by surprise including commentators Shane Warne and Brad Hogg, who felt Paine was short of his crease.
Because of the pandemic, the International Cricket Council has done away with neutral umpires because of quarantine rules. Umpires from host nations are officiating.
Though there hasn’t been any major controversy, there have been instances where “umpire’s call” has left teams ruing the absence of more Elite Panel umpires.
No country has a lot of them and they have to make do with umpires from the International Panel.
West Indies were at the receiving end in New Zealand last month, when Kieron Pollard and Jason Holder wondered why umpires couldn’t travel and go through quarantine, like players.
On Saturday, pointing to the Paine incident, Jasprit Bumrah was asked whether ICC should start allowing umpires to travel. Bumrah said it is unfortunate that neutral umpires are not around.
“These are things that we can’t control. I understand that the situations are difficult and all these things are out of our hands. I try to not focus on things that we can’t control, but yeah it is unfortunate that umpires are not allowed to travel. But it is something that I don’t have any power of changing,” he said.
Though the two on-field umpires at MCG — Bruce Oxenford and Paul Reiffel — are part of the ICC’s Elite Panel, the ICC can’t have the same luxury everywhere.
For instance, in the ongoing Boxing Day Test in Centurion, one on-field umpire made his debut and so did the third umpire. At Mount Maunganui, one on-field umpire and the third umpire have one Test each under the belt.
When England come to India in February, Indian umpires not part of the Elite Panel will be handed debut Tests because there is just one Indian in the Panel (Nitin Menon).
He, too, doesn’t have much of Test experience.
As Holder mentioned, when teams are taking a risk by letting players travel and undergo quarantine, why the ICC can’t do it for umpires is a question that might become louder.