Aussies outplayed by England or umpires?

[Dasa]

^Good sensible stuff from Lee.

 

[Zinzan]

Never have I seen a series more heavily affected by poor umpiring than this one.
A significant reason England are being seen to have outplayed the Aussies is because they have saved by the umpires to a huge degree.

I've always maintained Bucknor is about the most overrrated official in sport and that's only been proven in this series.

If ever an umpire was one to be swayed by home town crowds this guy takes the cake. Big appeal, get the crowd behind you and Bucknor will buckle every time. Half the time I reckon he doesn't even know why the players are appealing (look at that decision he made in the last test when he looked to the square leg umpire before firing the bloke). I'm not saying Bucknor is biased....just incompetent.

Look at not only how many POOR LBW decisions have been given against the Aussies in this series as well as how many GOOD ones England have received. Warne has fair dinkum missed out on half a dozen plumb decisions that would have been game-turning

These decisions have had an ENORMOUS influence on this tight contest despite what anyone thinks.

I'm not saying Australia deserve to be up in the series (despite what I've sarcastically said in other posts) or that England have played badly......and I also know that you will always get home town decisions against you wherever you play (even in Australia). But what I AM saying is that the amount of poor decisions in favour of England in this series is absolutely absurd.

Add to the fact that in many cases the England batsmen helped by these decisions have gone on and made big scores you just can't help but wonder what might have happened with a level playing field.

Having said all that please don't follow this up with all those 'sour grapes' type of accusations. I've played enough cricket around the world to know what to expect. I still think this is the greatest series I've ever seen and actually couldn't give a stuff if Australia lose the ashes after all these years.

Good luck to England and bring on the Oval.

Get well McGrath......and Jones.

Perhaps overall the Aussies have had the short end of the stick when it comes to the Umpiring decisions so far...but there's certainly NOT much in it.

I think the biggest factor for a lot of Aussie fans is that before this series they had everything go their way with the decisions. In the tests against NZ and Pakistan in the Australian summer, everything went for them. Everytime Warne went up ...the finger went up....everytime a plumb LBW decision went up against Gilchrist, no finger. Then the controversial claims by Bob Woolmer in the pakistan series of 20 odd wrong decisions to about 4 going Australia's way.

Quite Frankly, I can only think that a lot of Aussie fans are just so use to having all the close calls fall there way.

From a neutral point of view having seen both series, I'd say there is no way Australia have had nearly such a rough run with decisions in this series as Pakistan did in the Aust v Pak series in Australia. IMO there is no comparison.

 

[Deja moo]

Which suggests a massive decline in the standard of umpiring on show.

Too bad you realise it only when your teams on the receiving end, eh ?

 

[Slats4ever]

Too bad you realise it only when your teams on the receiving end, eh ?

hardly. i noticed it a long time ago... only found a great desire to comment on it now because there are so many bigots out there making grose generalisations about Australian fans.

 

[Deja moo]

hardly. i noticed it a long time ago... only found a great desire to comment on it now because there are so many bigots out there making grose generalisations about Australian fans.

fair enough.

 

[biased indian]

hardly. i noticed it a long time ago... only found a great desire to comment on it now because there are so many bigots out there making grose generalisations about Australian fans.

the same people were also doing the same to us also

 

[social]

Australia have been comprehensively out-gunned, bar the first test.

To attribute the results due to bad umpiring is poor show.

In the 2001 New Zealand in Australia test series, New Zealand were arguably denied winning the 3rd test by several crucial umpiring decisions on the fifth day, some simply farcical, which would have meant a 1-0 result to the New Zealanders. Include Langer's plumb LBW in the first test, first over by Cairns. It goes on...we didn't suddenly blame decisions for our misforturne. Touch on them fine, but to use it as the basis of your beating... another story.

It is quite ironic that i read the "Australian fans" thread and then took a look at this one.

At the end of the day, umpires are only part of the equation. You get good and bad decisions, and they generally even out.

A true fan can stand up and give credit where credit's due.

To be fair, NZ were saved by the rain in the first 2 tests and the 3rd test should have been totally irrelevant.

As always, and as is the case in this series, cricket remains a great leveller.

 

[Pedro Delgado]

"It's a very tough job," Lee said. "If I was to sit here and say we copped a few bad calls, then it's going to look like sour grapes and I am not into that. I think there are other things we can do to try and win Test matches other than worrying about if the person's putting his finger up. Things do tend to even themselves out.

"We're talking about two world-class umpires. They've got 0.3 seconds to make up their minds if the batsman has hit it, if it's hit his pad, if he's nicked it behind, if it's flicked his sweater.

"Then we head straight to the replay. We have got the commentators that see it in super slow-mo. I mean it's a pretty tough call. They might be able to see a blatant edge that's gone to the keeper but things happen, it all happens so quickly, so I am not going to say the umpires have done a bad job."

One of the most crucial decisions as the Trent Bridge Test reached its climax was Bucknor's refusal of Lee's lbw appeal against Matthew Hoggard. Bucknor turned it down in the belief that Hoggard hit it - a verdict supported by Hoggard after the match - but Lee convincingly argued that Bucknor made the right decision for the wrong reasons.

"I knew it hit Hoggard on the foot so I asked Steve Bucknor: 'Was that missing?' He said no, but that he hit it. I said, 'But, if he didn't hit it, was that out?' And he said that it was. But seeing the replay, it hit him straight on the foot and it was missing leg-stump. So it wasn't out."

The Guardian
3oth August 2005​

Typical Lee, and just one of the reasons why I like him so much. He's a credit to the game, some folks should learn from his attitude, from all quarters and countries.

 

[marc71178]

hardly. i noticed it a long time ago... only found a great desire to comment on it now because there are so many bigots out there making grose generalisations about Australian fans.

Yes, and I'm Chinese...

 

[honestbharani]

It is true that the umpiring standards have declined today but it is also true that the umpires are under more scrutiny these days. Who knows if an umpire in 1940 made the right decision or not? There were no super slow mos, no hawk eyes, no mat on the wickets etc... The point is, umpiring generally evens out. To talk about it as the reason for losing is rubbish, IMHO. Maybe you aussies (only those who are complaining, not the majority) should think that this is the evening out for all those bad decisions that went for you against Pak and NZ and Ind.