• Welcome to the Cricket Web forums, one of the biggest forums in the world dedicated to cricket.

    You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions and access our other features. By joining our free community you will have access to post topics, respond to polls, upload content and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join the Cricket Web community today!

    If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us.

Why do umpires always get bagged out?

Matt79

Global Moderator
^^ Do you seriously believe that?

Reckon umpires/refs in sports like soccer, and certainly AFL get away with murder cf. cricket umpires - and they still get slammed heaps. What other sport is an umpire expected to stand for five days, six hours a day, making decisions on such miniscule technicalities and distances (ie. was that front foot a fraction of an inch over the line), with so little support to help them, but so detailed, and obsessive a media coverage to tear them down?

Really, cricket is probably the worst for that, in that there is always so much down time between deliveries, during breaks etc, for commentators to dwell on a decision and re-hash it at a leisurely rate for half an hour, with the benefit of slow-motion replays, super-close ups, Hawkeye, hot-spots, strike zone indicators, multiple angles etc etc, when the umpire gets to see something that takes a fraction of a second once before they're expected to make a call.

Again, as for being on a pedestal, in the AFL here, the nature of the game makes it inevitable that players will unintentionally jostle umpires occasionally, and yet they're being given massive fines every time it happens. And if a player swears at an umpire, or even vocally expresses disappointment, the umpire will give a free kick against them, or even move the free kick 50m towards the opposition goal.

This is probably an apt place to post this link of some bloke tackling a rugby league ref on the weekend just gone:
YouTube - NRL Referee Tackle

Brings to mind the famous field incursion in the Springboks-All Blacks game a few years ago
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Not arguing that England did not deserve to win that series, which they clearly did based on the run of play on the field. Just pointing out that I am OK with umpiring decisions going against sides I support as well as for. I do think that umpiring mistakes can sometimes add to the entertainment (this is not only a cricket argument btw).

As I said earlier, probably on my own here. :)
Nah, with you, not ever going to get too upset about an umpiring decision...
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Never have had a problem with umpires giving batsmen not out to an out LBW, because stuff like a long stride, position of the stance can put doubt into the mind of the umpire and umpires should be sure about LBWs before giving them out, imo, and that is coming from a bowler who's only ever had three LBWs given.
That was a rank Yorker with no foot-movement bang in front of off. You couldn't get much more plumb. He gave either Kasprowicz or Gillespie out in the first-innings when they were less out.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Actually, umpires don't get nearly as much criticism as they deserve, or get in other sports.
'Tis the other sports that get it wrong in my book. Decision-makers are human and thus will make mistakes. There is no way they deserve the utterly ridiculous villification they get in other sports.
Only in cricket, we put them on a pedestal and allow them to build an over-inflated ego.
As I've said before - whether we allow them to do so or not, most don't.
 

RainaRocks

Cricket Spectator
I dont think anybody bags the umpires too much.. they are humans but they can make mistakes but they are trained for proper umpires and hence they are expected to justify their positions ... anyways modern technology have enabled them to take help from third umpires and television replays and so their judgement should be nearly perfect.. one or two mistakes in a series is fair but recently umpires have made a lot of mistakes and so umpiring should be improved
 

PhoenixFire

International Coach
^^ Do you seriously believe that?

Reckon umpires/refs in sports like soccer, and certainly AFL get away with murder cf. cricket umpires -
Must say that might be the case in Australia, but Soccer refs in England get absolutely slaughtered for every single mistake they make, week in week out. Not easy at all being one.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Oh the umpires get pilloried to the point where they can't get people to do it, but I meant in terms of the volume of mistakes they get away with murder.
 

Uppercut

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Reckon umpires/refs in sports like soccer, and certainly AFL get away with murder cf. cricket umpires - and they still get slammed heaps. What other sport is an umpire expected to stand for five days, six hours a day, making decisions on such miniscule technicalities and distances (ie. was that front foot a fraction of an inch over the line), with so little support to help them, but so detailed, and obsessive a media coverage to tear them down?
:( How sad. Why don't we start a charity for these unfortunate souls who choose to work full-time in a sport they love? How noone has noticed the horrific nature of their existence before is beyond me...
 

GIMH

Norwood's on Fire
Nah, with you, not ever going to get too upset about an umpiring decision...
Yes, I never feel as bitter as an England batsman getting sawn off in a Test match as when the mighty whites concede a dodgy penalty or whatever. Probably because in cricket you have 20 wickets and plenty of time to catch up on incorrect decisions whereas in footy the currency of the goal is massive, one decision can really wreck a game much more than it can in cricket.

People will point to things like Kasper being given out at a, erm, fairly decisive point, but even then, he should have already been given out. Things are much more likely to even themselves out in cricket, in my opinion.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
That's the point - increasingly few people are choosing to do it. And it is unfair that they're held to a standard way above anyone else in the sport. Rarely a batsman or a captain will have their individual actions pulled apart to the level an umpire's are. And even then, if a batsman has a good test, followed by two shockers, then another couple of good performances, they're unlikely to be sacked.

And we couldn't have the sport without umpires.
 

Top_Cat

Request Your Custom Title Now!
:( How sad. Why don't we start a charity for these unfortunate souls who choose to work full-time in a sport they love? How noone has noticed the horrific nature of their existence before is beyond me...
Again, only the elite panel are professional. The rest generally hold down other jobs. As Matt pointed out, less are choosing a career as an umpire. Why would you?

Point is, if we want them to treat it as a profession, including all associated **** (bad press, etc.), they should be paid accordingly. The talent pool to draw from is already stupidly small and this helps no-one, certainly not the standard of umpiring. Hell, I'd never choose to be an umpire at an elite level.

Your attitude is akin to telling pilots to STFU because they get to fly airplanes which are cool. This is a totally unhelpful attitude when you're a meat bomber who earns just enough to be straddling the poverty line. I get the feeling you're judging the whole lot by the guy who are at the very top which, much like aviation, aren't representative. Sure, being an airline pilot is sweet pay-wise but what of the 95% of all other pilots? And yes there's a high turnover of non-airline pilots and, yes, the lack of expert pilots is routinely identified in incident reports as a massive problem with aviation safety.

The argument you're running is pretty much the exact one run by the ABC when cricketers were agitating to be paid professionally and it took Packer and subsequent dilution of the talent pool of Test sides for cricket administrators to wake up. It's not quite analogous to umpires because even the top players back then were getting paid bugger-all but it's unfair to tell the non elite panel troup to just deal with it because there are perks to the job. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
 

slugger

State Vice-Captain
Actually, I am. In fact, I thought the decision against Kasper in the last Ashes (which arguably cost us the series) was a bit dodgy but you accept what the umpire decides. McDermott in Adelaide against the Windies also comes to mind. Pretty much any close series is going to have a bit of controversy and it only makes it more interesting. You swear at the umpires a bit at the time but soom get over it.
its all fine and dandy when your team has been number one for a decade and half an umpire error is not going to effect your team in a big way.... teams like nz cant comeback from an umpires error let alone 2 or 3 a game.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
So NZ never get decisions in their favour to balance that out?

As you imply there, NZ's problem isn't bad decisions, it's that they aren't good enough. When you acknowledge that as the case, blaming umpires for your losses makes no sense.
 

Uppercut

Request Your Custom Title Now!
Again, only the elite panel are professional. The rest generally hold down other jobs. As Matt pointed out, less are choosing a career as an umpire. Why would you?

Point is, if we want them to treat it as a profession, including all associated **** (bad press, etc.), they should be paid accordingly. The talent pool to draw from is already stupidly small and this helps no-one, certainly not the standard of umpiring. Hell, I'd never choose to be an umpire at an elite level.

Your attitude is akin to telling pilots to STFU because they get to fly airplanes which are cool. This is a totally unhelpful attitude when you're a meat bomber who earns just enough to be straddling the poverty line. I get the feeling you're judging the whole lot by the guy who are at the very top which, much like aviation, aren't representative. Sure, being an airline pilot is sweet pay-wise but what of the 95% of all other pilots? And yes there's a high turnover of non-airline pilots and, yes, the lack of expert pilots is routinely identified in incident reports as a massive problem with aviation safety.

The argument you're running is pretty much the exact one run by the ABC when cricketers were agitating to be paid professionally and it took Packer and subsequent dilution of the talent pool of Test sides for cricket administrators to wake up. It's not quite analogous to umpires because even the top players back then were getting paid bugger-all but it's unfair to tell the non elite panel troup to just deal with it because there are perks to the job. Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
Well the whole point of a free market is that if a job is so bad that noone wants to do it, you're going to have to pay them more to change their minds. I'm not telling the non-elite-panel group to "just deal with it"- i'm saying that if you really don't like it, noone's stopping you from leaving and trying to find another job. And if there's a serious shortage of umpires as a result, the cricketing boards are going to have to increase the pay substantially so that more people want to do it.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
So NZ never get decisions in their favour to balance that out?

As you imply there, NZ's problem isn't bad decisions, it's that they aren't good enough. When you acknowledge that as the case, blaming umpires for your losses makes no sense.
Nah, it makes perfect sense. If there's a game between Australia and New Zealand and there's 2 errors that go NZ's way and 2 that go Aus's, that's going to favour Aus, by a fair bit. The more Umpiring errors, unless they're skewed to one team, will favour the stronger side.

It's this that's pretty unacceptable, IMO, and would be best cut-out to the maximum degree. You cannot have weaker sides being disadvantaged further still by bad Umpiring.
 

Matt79

Global Moderator
Nah, it makes perfect sense. If there's a game between Australia and New Zealand and there's 2 errors that go NZ's way and 2 that go Aus's, that's going to favour Aus, by a fair bit. The more Umpiring errors, unless they're skewed to one team, will favour the stronger side.

It's this that's pretty unacceptable, IMO, and would be best cut-out to the maximum degree. You cannot have weaker sides being disadvantaged further still by bad Umpiring.
Wouldn't be a problem if NZ, or whoever - not meaning to focus in on them specifically, were a better team. It's facile to blame the umpires when their mistakes are only a problem because you're already not competitive. The job of the umpires is to do their job to officiate the game correctly, not to even up any disparity between the teams playing.
 

Debris

International 12th Man
its all fine and dandy when your team has been number one for a decade and half an umpire error is not going to effect your team in a big way.... teams like nz cant comeback from an umpires error let alone 2 or 3 a game.
Or a team which would not normally be competitive gets a chance through a few shockers. It works both ways.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Wouldn't be a problem if NZ, or whoever - not meaning to focus in on them specifically, were a better team. It's facile to blame the umpires when their mistakes are only a problem because you're already not competitive. The job of the umpires is to do their job to officiate the game correctly, not to even up any disparity between the teams playing.
No-one's blaming the Umpires - merely saying that mistakes in games involving one team notably stronger than another are more important than ever to eliminate. Because the more errors, the more it favours the stronger side.

You can say "it wouldn't be a problem if the weaker team was stronger" - well if it was possible to manufacture a strong team then that'd be fine. But it isn't. A good team comes about because of fortunate coincidence - lots of good players being around simualtaneously.
 

zaremba

Cricketer Of The Year
Nah, it makes perfect sense. If there's a game between Australia and New Zealand and there's 2 errors that go NZ's way and 2 that go Aus's, that's going to favour Aus, by a fair bit. The more Umpiring errors, unless they're skewed to one team, will favour the stronger side.
Only in the same sense that a level playing field "favours" the stronger team.
 

Richard

Cricket Web Staff Member
Nah, a level playing field would be zero errors. That'd be something no-one would have any grounds to complain about.

Simple truth of the matter though is that if Justin Langer or Adam Gilchrist gets a let-off it's probably going to cost Kyle Mills and Daniel Vettori more than Lou Vincent or Brendon McCullum getting a let-off is going to cost Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne.

If none get any let-offs, then the best team may triumph without interference.
 

Top