ICC’s Cricket Committee set to back contentious ‘umpire’s call’ rule

The recommendation will be tabled at the governing body's chief executive committee meeting, scheduled for a virtual meet in the coming week, as per a report in ESPNcricinfo.

New Delhi: The International Cricket Council’s (ICC) Cricket Committee has recommended that the concept of ‘Umpire’s call’ rule in the Decision Review System (DRS) should stay, citing that the ball-tracking technology was not going to be 100 per cent correct.

The recommendation will be tabled at the governing body’s chief executive committee meeting, scheduled for a virtual meet in the coming week, as per a report in ESPNcricinfo.

As per the report, the committee, headed by former India captain Anil Kumble and counting a set of former international captains — Andrew Strauss, Rahul Dravid, Mahela Jayawardene, Shaun Pollock –, as well as match referee Ranjan Madugalle, umpire Richard Illingworth and Mickey Arthur, among its members, took suggestions from other match officials, broadcasters, and Hawk-Eye, the ball-tracking technology supplier.

The committee, after some debate, decided that the ‘Umpire’s call’ rule should stay because of the aforementioned reason.

‘Umpire’s Call’ has been a huge debating point in the cricket world since the onset of the DRS and many former players have urged the ICC to do away with this. However, earlier this month, umpire Nitin Menon highlighted why this needs to be stuck with.

“See, first of all, Umpire’s Call is regarding decisions which are very close, the decisions which are 50-50, which can go either way, goes with the call of the on-field umpire. It is not a completely perfect decision that has been overturned, so it is a 50-50 decision which can go either way, to the batting side or the fielding side. When we know that technology is not itself 100 per cent correct, so that is when you need the Umpire’s Call,” Menon had told ANI.

“When we know technology is not 100 per cent correct, so whatever the on-field decision is given, since it is a very marginal call, so we will stick with the decision the on-field umpire has given. This concept needs to be understood by the general public because they are not aware of why Umpire’s Call concept is there in DRS. It is basically because it was a marginal call and 100 per cent technology cannot say whether it was hitting the stumps or not,” he had added.

India skipper Virat Kohli recently said that the Umpire’s Call is creating a lot of confusion at the moment and the lawmakers need to look at it so that it does not leave a grey area when a big tournament is being played.