Making umpires accountable?

[gap2]

The Referees from Super 14 (rugby) are going to front the media after the match to answer questions about their decisions made on the field. Don't know how much it will achieve for Rugby since its pretty obvious if an error has been made and all you gain out of it is a "I'm wrong and I'm sorry".

Cricket on the other hand has a number of grey areas where even technology can't say if it was definitely wrong. Like those faint edges, did they hear a noise or did they see the ball deviate. The UDRS has taken out alot of the errors that would be asked but you could even ask the 3rd umpire why he gave that out/not out something which could have helped for the England v SA series.

While its not going to change the outcome of the game, its good to have the umpires being made accountable for their mistakes, instead of hiding behind closed doors.

[Matt79]

Don't see how having to front up to a presser makes an umpire more accountable. It's not the media or fans who hire and fire them. If they are accountable to the ICC that's all that needed. I don't see what good actually comes of such a move.

In fact, I'd wonder whether the reverse might happen and umpires become more hesitant to make calls as they'll be anticipating a grilling from the journos (who let's face it are pretty **** as cricketing authorities anyhow). Particularly if there's a large and parachoial press corps in places like India and Aus.

A bit more accessibility would be good - I reckon interviews with respected former players who could ask questions about commonly controversial issues. There's an online test where you get asked to ajudge lbws based on a single full speed view of a delivery from an umpires perspective - it then explained the correct answer for each case. It was bloody hard and gave an insight into what's facing them.

[Somerset]

The Super14 referees aren't being "held accountable" or merely "answering questions about their decisions made on the field". The purpose of interviewing the referees with the new law interpretations is more to get a feel of how the players are adapting to the new style of refereeing in the eyes of the referee, whether the players are "buying into" the changes, the penalty counts, etc. Its certainly not long term anyway. For the record I don't think something similar is necessary for cricket.

[Richard]

We know full well that there are better Umpires out there than those on the ICC Elite Panel (and not just on the "there must be someone better than Daryl Harper" basis), but I don't really see that anything could tremendously improve Umpiring standards other than having specific recruiting and reviewing panels of a handful of people who are paid to assess Umpires and pick\drop them from the Elite Panel and Supplementary Panel.

Given some of the things I$C$C spend money on I'd say that would be a worthwhile mini-investment.