Friday, 23 September 2005

Super series issues

How do you select neutral umpires for a match involving Australia vs the Rest of the World? Do you bring in officials from non-cricketing nations? Will we have Icelandic umpires signalling for off-side every time the ball goes behind square? Will we have American umpires waving their arms to signal "safe" everytime a batsman completes a run?

Sadly the answer is "no". We are just going to have two umpires from Australia and two from the rest of world. Aleem Dar, Darrell Hair, Rudi Koertzen and Simon Taufel are the men who have been picked - presumably Hair getting in because the ailing Australian side needs every bit of help it can get.

In another piece of news, which I don't think anyone has really noticed yet, umpires will be allowed to consult with a television umpire on all decisions. Which I guess includes LBW appeals. This is not something that I would be particularly opposed to. But I do feel that there could have been some open discussion and a chance for players and fans to comment before that decision was made.

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