Richard Boock: Third umpire critics should be given out

For once in a very long time, the players don't know best.

At least, that's the case if you're discussing the ICC's bold new trial of increased umpiring technology, essentially a bid to bring more accuracy into decision-making and make the game fairer for everyone.

Whatever the merits of the present series between Australia and the World XI, the move to expand the umpires' access to technology should be applauded as a step in the right direction, and celebrated as a victory for logic and common sense.

Never mind that it just might help the umpiring profession shake off their Keystone Kops image.

Under the Super Series trial, officials can ask the third umpire for information usually available only to television viewers, something they've been inexplicably denied for decades.

The trial means that instead of being depicted as clueless monkeys, they can now clarify whether an lbw appeal should be disqualified on the grounds of an inside edge, or whether shouts for a non-deviating caught behind should be upheld.

You'd think that any measure designed to improve the accuracy of umpiring would be welcomed by all stakeholders, but the players have historically resisted technological advancements and nothing has changed this time around.

New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming has come out against the increase of technology in recent years and, before the one-dayer on Wednesday, Australian captain Ricky Ponting was expressing his concerns over the development.

Their main beef seems to involve the potential for lost time as replays are considered by the third umpire, but you can't help feeling that - having received the benefit of the doubt as batsmen for the past 20 years - there might be an ulterior motive.

Certainly, the time concerns didn't manifest themselves in the Super Series opener, the only referral upstairs coming from umpire Simon Taufel after a half-hearted appeal for a caught-behind against Simon Katich.

The replays proved inconclusive and Katich was given not out.

And neither did the time concerns become an issue in New Zealand domestic cricket last summer, when the national organisation was trialling a similar umpiring experiment in televised games.

National umpiring manager Brian Aldridge said yesterday that there were only nine referrals in eight televised games, lending weight to the suggestion that the time complications were being overplayed.

It's difficult to explain why some people are so anxious to condemn a move aimed at bringing more credibility to the game, not to mention something that appears so inevitable in terms of modern justice.

There will be those who talk about the decline in the authority of the standing umpire, the need to preserve the culture of the game and their fear of umpires being eventually replaced by stainless-steel clothes-hangers.

But what will be the future of umpires if they're forced to continue making decisions as if they were trapped in a 1928 time-warp, while all those watching on television are hand-fed the latest technology?

Surely it's already had an impact on umpiring recruitment if the current crop are any guide. The only ones who've made it to the top seem to have developed either a split personality, or no personality at all.

When it comes to progressing and improving the game, the umpiring development is probably the best move the ICC has made this year, and much more relevant than the silly supersub or powerplay experiments.

For once, they seem to have got it right.

Let's hope they stick to their guns.