April 18 Thursday 2002
Tony Greig, Majola want more powers for third umpire

SHARJAH: Two well-known figures of world cricket believe that having two neutral umpires supervising Test matches is not the solution to controversy free international cricket matches. 

"I would suggest that instead we should give more powers to the third umpire and have home umpires supervise Test matches," said former England captain Tony Greig. 

"I agree with this suggestion, it is a viable one. But we need to give time to this concept of elite panel of umpires supervising Tests and One-day Internationals atleast for two years to see how it works," said the chief executive of the South African Cricket Union, Gerald Majola. 

Majola, however, felt that giving more powers to the third umpires was not a bad idea and there was nothing wrong in using technology to help out the umpires on the field. 

The International Cricket Council (ICC) has decided that in its knockout tournament in Sri Lanka in September, an experiment would be held which would allow the umpires on the field to seek advice of the third umpire even on close catch decisions and also dicey leg before appeals. But the final decision would be up to them. 

At present the third umpire can only help out the umpires on line calls for run-out and stumping decisions. 

Majola said that the advent of television had brought more pressure on the umpires and any mistake they made was evident to everyone within seconds. 

"Let us not forget they are human beings and prone to mistakes. But I support the suggestion that the third umpire should have more independence and say in helping out the on the field umpires." 

He also felt that after watching the performance of the elite panel of umpires for two years, umpires needed to be judged for their performances. 

Tony Greig was, however, more candid in stating that the solution to reducing cricket controversies was giving powers to the third umpire to overrule decisions of the field umpires if they were wrong. 

"Why can't we have home umpires supervising matches and the third umpire having the authority to set things right if some mistake has been made which can be costly to a team." 

Greig felt it was unfair that home umpires would not get a chance to supervise matches in their own countries and wondered how the standard of umpiring was going to improve in countries when their umpires didn't get a chance to stand in international matches.