Neutral umpires and the declaration of independence in Test cricket

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2014/dec/17/neutral-home-umpires-test-cricket

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On the afternoon of 26 October 1881, in Tombstone, Arizona, a gunfight took place between a bunch of outlaws including the Clanton brothers, Ike and Billy, and the Earp brothers, Wyatt, Morgan and Virgil, the lawmen in an unruly town, together with the man known as Doc Holliday. The gun battle, during which three outlaws were killed, is said to have lasted just 30 seconds, although Hollywood licence suggests much longer.

Following the 1957 film it became known universally as the Gunfight at the OK Corral and ever since, in cricket, whenever umpires have become over-enthusiastic when it comes to raising the finger – firing batsmen out – that has been the euphemism used.

More than a century on from the Earps, in April 1993, in a match between West Indies and Pakistan at Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad, Test cricket’s ultimate shootout occurred. A match that produced 17 lbw dismissals included eight lbws in the space of around 90 minutes. It was carnage (and the record, which has been beaten only once, stood for 18 years until the 20 leg-befores when West Indies played Pakistan in Guyana in May 2011).

The oddities back in Port of Spain were several. First, one of the officials was Steve Bucknor, a Jamaican, who gave 10 of the decisions, and those who have watched him give lbws throughout his career will understand that even as the eighth of the sequence was being given he was probably still ruminating over the first. Second, the other umpire was Dickie Bird, for whom such frivolity with the finger was anathema but who joined in the spirit wholeheartedly and confessed afterwards that he had revelled in it.

Bird was standing as an independent official as a result of an ICC toe-in-the-water initiative which began the previous year and which came on the back of Imran Khan’s exasperation at fingers other than those of umpires being pointed at the probity of Pakistan officials. So in 1986 he (such was his power) invited the Indian officials VK Ramaswamy and Piloo Reporter to stand against West Indies. Three years on from that the England umpires John Holder and John Hampshire stood in the cauldron of a Pakistan Test against India. From 1994 one neutral official umpired in Test matches and since 2002 both have been independent.

It would be rare that a touring side did not hold a grudge against the home umpires in the days before neutral ones were introduced and now a study by a trio of economists, Dr Abhinav Sacheti and Professor David Paton from Nottingham University Business School and Dr Ian Gregory-Smith from the University of Sheffield, published in the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society supports a view that when it comes to lbws in particular, any perceived bias, conscious or otherwise, has disappeared.

The study, involving 1,000 Test matches played between 1986 and 2012, showed that with two home umpires the visiting team suffered 16% more lbws than their opponents; with one neutral official it receded to 10%; and with two neutrals the differential disappeared; all this taking into account factors such as quality of respective teams, ground conditions and so forth.

The bias was found to be strongest in Australia, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. England, for example, well remember the successful 1970-71 Ashes tour in which they won the series despite their bowlers not gaining a single lbw in the six Tests played (although it is worth pointing out that Australia gained only five and never more than one in any single match).

I have to say that a lack of independence was the general perception in my own playing time to the extent that what were almost urban myths grew. So it became fact that Javed Miandad was never given out lbw in Pakistan, Sunil Gavaskar similar in India, while England players suffered abroad.

In fact a small selection of stats regarding high-class batsmen of the 70s and 80s rather disputes this (without, of course, taking account of those occasions when they should have been lbw). Gavaskar, for example, was lbw 10 times at home as opposed to seven abroad; Graham Gooch 38 times at home (not all to Terry Alderman: the supposed response to a “Thatcher out!” graffito – “lbw Alderman” – was my own invention that in itself became urban myth, by the way) and 12 abroad; Greg Chappell nine at home and seven abroad; Viv Richards nine at home and 12 abroad.

Only Miandad of this group, someone who really did show his pads to the bowler, bucked the trend with eight lbws at home and 25 away.

The pertinence of this now is that almost on an annual basis the subject of returning to the use of home umpires in Test matches is discussed at the ICC. They are already used in Twenty20 matches and one official is local in one-day internationals, with the third umpire an increasingly important element (neutral in DRS games in Tests and ODIs). One argument is that the use of DRS, and its increasing sophistication, ought to preclude the need for neutrals even given the increasing willingness to give lbws as a result and parameters for its implementation that are too broad to be entirely fair.

A second consideration concerns the nationality of the ICC’s dozen elite umpires of which, as it stands, four are from England and four Australian, so that in the last Ashes series there were only four who could officiate. Why should the best umpires not be allowed to stand without their neutrality being tested is the argument.

Gregory-Smith concludes this would be a mistake: “Whatever the reasons behind the bias, our results suggest that cricketing authorities should be very cautious before returning to a system whereby umpires can officiate in Test matches involving their own country.” He is probably right.