'Obviously wrong': Cricket great reopens contentious debate
Australian cricket great Ricky Ponting has hinted players are fed up with inferior umpires standing in high-stakes games over archaic rules requiring neutral officials.
A number of retired cricketers let loose after a shocking opening day of the Ashes for umpires Aleem Dar and Joel Wilson.
Australia in particular were forced to either turn to the Decision Review System (DRS) or accept numerous decisions that proved to be wrong.
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The umpiring may continue to have an outsized say in the series because the ICC does not allow the best umpires to officiate against their own nation.
Seven of the 12 members of the elite panel are ineligible – English quartet Richard Kettleborough, Nigel Llong, Richard Illingworth and Michael Gough, plus Australians Rod Tucker, Bruce Oxenford and Paul Reiffel.
Wilson, from Trinidad and Tobago, only joined the elite panel last week, while fourth Test umpire Ruchira Palliyaguruge has not yet been considered after standing in just three Tests to date.
Ponting, a member of the MCC cricket committee, suggested players are seeking change – and he will look to ignite the discussion.
"I would like to think the game has come far enough now for the game to not have neutral umpires,” he told the Cricket Australia website.
"People might say that with all the technology we’ve got now, it doesn’t matter that much. But it’s not a good spectacle when pretty obviously wrong decisions are made.
“There’s been a lot a negativity about the DRS over the years, but we’re pretty lucky that we had it last night.
"It’s already been spoken about a lot among the players. If it’s not brought up (when the committee meets) I’ll make sure it’s added to the agenda.”
It was only 17 years ago that it became the norm to use two neutral umpires, but the idea that DRS could bring an end to the practice was raised as early as 2010.
The issue came to the fore in the recent Cricket World Cup final after an unexpected deflection off the bat of Ben Stokes led to an incorrect application of the rules by Kumar Dharmasena and Marais Erasmus.
While Kettleborough and Illingworth sat on the sidelines, England gained a run due to the standing umpires’ misunderstanding of the rules.
Ponting believes missing out on spending summers at home also shortens the career of some umpires; respected Australian official Simon Taufel retired in 2012 at just 41 years old.
