Umpire Nitin Menon was outstanding in England series: Shivram

There were initial hiccups but thereafter the Indian umpires proved the critics wrong

Hyderabad: For long many had questioned the competence of Indian umpires but this Covid-19 pandemic gave the opportunity and, according to veteran umpire Ivaturi Shivram, the trio of Nitin Menon, Anil Choudhary and Virender Sharma rose to the occasion splendidly in the recently concluded high profile India-England Test series at home.

“The Indian umpires showed the world that they are good and competent. There were initial hiccups but thereafter they proved the critics wrong with some good decisions to come out with flying colours. For me Nitin Menon was man of the series. He was simply outstanding. He was cool and efficient. He handled the matches superbly with his decisions.’’

Shivram pointed out that it is difficult to officiate on India’s dusty and turning tracks. “It needs a lot of concentration. In England it is all about seam and swing, in Australia and South Africa it is about the bounce. Umpiring in these conditions is not as difficult as spinning tracks in the sub-continent.’’

The former international umpire said it was totally new for someone like Nitin to officiate on dusty wickets. “He might have not umpired earlier on these types of wickets. We don’t find them in domestic circuits. It was a big test for the three umpires. Under the circumstances they were very good in their decisions.

“I was pretty impressed with Nitin, particularly in the fourth Test in Ahmedabad where to give decisions on variable bounce was very difficult. Nitin and Virender handled the situation very nicely. Nitin was spot on with a few of his decisions.

In a particular decision, I thought Nitin had erred because the ball hit the batsman on the knee roll and he was not far ahead of the crease, just half cock. But Nitin proved right when DRS showed the ball went over the bails. Even international Elite umpires would have fumbled and even struggled on turning tracks but Nitin was able to come out with a correct decision.’’

Shivram said after this series the foreign players would respect Indian umpires. “They would have more respect for Nitin. He has a great future. It is unfortunate that Indian umpires are always shown in poor light. Umpires make mistakes and they are human beings. I would give Nitin 9 out of 10. ICC should seriously look at the decisions the Indian umpires made in the series and how they stood up to the challenges more seriously. England captain Joe Root admitted that the Indian umpires were excellent.’’

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