To Er is Umpire…
November 23, 2007 by Dinsa Sachan
Filed under Tennis
Rudi Koertzen apologized to Kumar Sangakkara after he notoriously gave him out off a Stuart Clarke bouncer. Courtesy calls are appreciated, but what use was it? The damage had been done.
I was momentarily put off by that incident, but since I am a Brutus Murcus of sorts, I moved on to other things, dismissing it — you’ve got to respect the umpire’s decision no matter what. Case closed.
But then, paradigm shifts happen (Thomas Kuhn coined the term, for ye science buffs). I came across this blog post by Jagadish the other day, and it got me thinking.
I was going to say something in the comments, but didn’t, since Reto, founder of Hit and Six, said pretty much the same thing.
Something to mull over the weekend, I thought. (If you are still alive by that time; lots of bomb blasts happening again. One just happened over here.)
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Btw, I wonder what Monty Paneser would be doing on Saturday?
Get the joke, eh?
I think that all players, officials and spectators should follow the umpires decision, even if it is wrong. Otherwise there would be a lot of time wasted with appeals, and complaints.
I forgot how cricketers never make mistakes.
Totally agree on the time-wasting part. All those technologies are only going to slow down the play.
Hey Din, i wrote that Hey proboter post for ya.
I don’t know about the slowing down part of it. I’m not in favour of an “appeal system”, but I’m sure that the third umpire could look up the decision and override the on-field umpire pretty quickly. The Sangakkara thing for example was pretty obvious. Of course, that would erode the on-field umpire’s authority, but I think that’s better than being made to look like a fool by the giant-screens…
No one got the joke. Do’h!