Cricket: Umpires fail to hit mark

Billy Bowden. Photo / Greg Bowker

One thing the Australians cannot whinge about too loudly is the umpiring.

The unfortunate Kiwi Billy Bowden and Asad Rauf have been even-handed in their incompetence.

Two Australians got howlers on Friday, Marcus North and Stuart Clark. They did pretty well to contain their disappointment, considering North hit the cover off the one that supposedly pinned him lbw, and Clark was about a foot away from making contact with his "bat-pad" catch.

In fact, the decisions would have been more accurate if they had been given the other way.

England have suffered just as many miscarriages of justice.

They would have been into Australia's middle-order a great deal faster if Rauf had not turned down a stone-dead appeal against Shane Watson. Then there was the huge no-ball Bowden failed to see Ben Hilfenhaus deliver on Thursday to dismiss Andrew Strauss.

This is not a personal attack on Bowden and Rauf. This series has had five different umpires and none has been especially convincing.

The irony is that international umpire of the year for the past five years, Simon Taufel, has been enjoying a month off at his home in Sydney.

"Simon is a superb umpire at the pinnacle of his career," said former Australian fast bowler Jason Gillespie. "And yet the [neutral umpires] rules say that he cannot stand in the most important series in the game."

"I find that strange, because the standard of the umpiring has been ordinary. The whole process needs re-examining."

The landscape will change in two months when TV referrals become standard. Maybe then will be the time to do away with the idea test umpires cannot officiate their own countrymen. Instead, we can just have the best men for the job.