Steve Bucknor retires

[G.I.Joe]

'bout ****in' time too.

Cricinfo - Steve Bucknor to retire from umpiring

"The body is feeling quite good and I know I could go on for another two or three years. However, something inside me is telling me that it is time to go."

I know you're supposed to offer up the usual cliches when making these announcements, but jeez, this man has some thick skin. Prime example of a man spoiling his legacy by overstaying his welcome.

 

[Anil]

good riddance...should have been put to pasture well before this...

 

[zaremba]

Hideously overrated in the first half of his career, Steve Bucknor's biggest mistake has been to hang on long enough for the chickens to come home to roost.

Seems a fairly cool customer but he's never been a competent umpire imo.

 

[Goocheslamb]

wait i thought he retired few years ago? haven't seen him umpiring tests in the last few years

 

[Richard]

Hideously overrated in the first half of his career, Steve Bucknor's biggest mistake has been to hang on long enough for the chickens to come home to roost.

Seems a fairly cool customer but he's never been a competent umpire imo.

ITSTL. I obviously only have memory of him from 1998 onwards but I never had that many complaints until about 2002/03, until 2004/05, then again since 2007/08.

TBH, he seemed, as Umpires go, pretty good - outside the above named periods. He wasn't as good as Dickie Bird or Simon Taufel, but those are two of the best there's ever been. Most Umpires make fairly regular mistakes, and by the time the 1990s rolled around it was generally possible to spot almost all errors, so even the better-than-poor ones would sometimes look... well, poor.

However, it's a travesty that he didn't retire after the 2007 World Cup - as UIMM he had originally planned to do. Somehow, a complete shocker (like Bucknor had in the SCG Test of 2007/08) is just that bit worse when it comes from an Umpire who most people know should be in retirement.

I thought he was ailing, as I say, after the summer of 2002, but between 2005 and 2007 he pulled himself back up and made, when I was watching, few errors. I was really rather surprised but, naturally, pleased.

However, as I say, if there's one thing I wish regarding him it's that he'd hung-up the jacket at the end of WC2007. We'd have been spared SCGgate 2007/08, to some extent at the very least, if that'd happened.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

He was like a drunk version of David Constant.

 

[HMas]

good riddance.

 

[sammy2]

One of the best ever.

 

[Lillian Thomson]

wait i thought he retired few years ago?

He intended to, but it takes him about three years to make every decision.

 

[Jigga988]

The whole India thing pushed him to retirement and I thought that was extremely unfair, due to the fact that they targeted him out and not the other standing umpire when both made as much bad decisions as eachother...

To all you people who are saying how horrible he is, have you not been seeing the standard of umpiring lately, as umpires go he was quite good until about 2005-6, and the India series, think all this criticism is a bit ott and warped from recent memories of him...

 

[zaremba]

ITSTL. I obviously only have memory of him from 1998 onwards but I never had that many complaints until about 2002/03, until 2004/05, then again since 2007/08.

TBH, he seemed, as Umpires go, pretty good - outside the above named periods. He wasn't as good as Dickie Bird or Simon Taufel, but those are two of the best there's ever been. Most Umpires make fairly regular mistakes, and by the time the 1990s rolled around it was generally possible to spot almost all errors, so even the better-than-poor ones would sometimes look... well, poor.

However, it's a travesty that he didn't retire after the 2007 World Cup - as UIMM he had originally planned to do. Somehow, a complete shocker (like Bucknor had in the SCG Test of 2007/08) is just that bit worse when it comes from an Umpire who most people know should be in retirement.

I thought he was ailing, as I say, after the summer of 2002, but between 2005 and 2007 he pulled himself back up and made, when I was watching, few errors. I was really rather surprised but, naturally, pleased.

However, as I say, if there's one thing I wish regarding him it's that he'd hung-up the jacket at the end of WC2007. We'd have been spared SCGgate 2007/08, to some extent at the very least, if that'd happened.

I've not tried to slice his career series-by-series. But from a relatively early stage in his career I lost faith in his decision-making and haven't regained it at any stage since.

 

[Nate]

Haha, you're all pathetic quite frankly. Don't see any of you Umpiring International Cricket.

Truely a great servant of the game, regardless of the errors he made.

 

[zaremba]

Haha, you're all pathetic quite frankly. Don't see any of you Umpiring International Cricket.

It's a difficult job. Some are better at it than others. Bucknor was one of the weaker ones in my eyes.

The fact that we're not international umpires doesn't stop us from having opinions. Who knows, they might even be valid!

 

[ret]

never liked the guy

 

[Matt79]

Well done to the guy on a long and generally distinguished career in what is an extremely difficult, increasingly unpleasant and utterly thankless profession. Made a few bad blues in his time, but that comes with territory, particularly if you are there long enough.

Good luck and happy retirement to the man with the slowest finger in world cricket.

 

[shivfan]

I can't believe some of the uncharitable remarks I've seen on this thread....

Umpiring is very difficult, especially with all the TV cameras on you. Every umpire makes blunders, and Simon Taufel himself had some seriously big blunders when India toured the Caribbean.

Bucknor had some very good series, and some very bad series. But, IMHO, overall he was one of the best umpires over the past 20 years....

 

[Jigga988]

I can't believe some of the uncharitable remarks I've seen on this thread....

Umpiring is very difficult, especially with all the TV cameras on you. Every umpire makes blunders, and Simon Taufel himself had some seriously big blunders when India toured the Caribbean.

Bucknor had some very good series, and some very bad series. But, IMHO, overall he was one of the best umpires over the past 20 years....

agreed

 

[Richard]

I've not tried to slice his career series-by-series. But from a relatively early stage in his career I lost faith in his decision-making and haven't regained it at any stage since.

That's quite fair enough - I've basically refused to take seriously any Umpire who looked poor for the first year or two I saw him.

However, as I say, I didn't see Bucknor's early Umpiring career and my first experience of him was in 1998. And said experience was pretty positive - I thought, apart from Ol' Shep, he was the best going around, and after Ol' Shep declined (about 2001 probably) he was the best for a year or two.

 

[Richard]

It's a difficult job. Some are better at it than others. Bucknor was one of the weaker ones in my eyes.

Here's the interesting part - who was it you thought was notably better? That could count those from early and later in Bucknor's career.

 

[Richard]

Good luck and happy retirement to the man with the slowest finger in world cricket.

Steve Bucknor's retired, not Rudi Koertzen. Though I know plenty would probably be happy if it was both of them.

(BTW, myself I think Koertzen is generally better than most Umpires going around - reckon I could name 3-4 at most who're clearly better)