BLOG: Cricket's Monkey Trial
Perhaps sipping a Caribbean cocktail, banished cricket umpire Steve Bucknor watched the third Australia v India Test Match on TV, which is precisely how he should have watched the ill-fated Second. Not as spectator. As man in charge.
A matter of seconds after Andrew Symonds edged THAT ball into Dhoni's gloves, the only person at the SCG, the only person in Australia, indeed the only person among a worldwide audience of millions who wasn't aware that Symonds had hit (the cover off) the ball was the poor sod who most needed to know.
Snicko, Hawk-Eye, Stump-Cam … Bucknor would have had more chance of accurately umpiring the Third Test from his armchair in Antigua than from the WACA crease.
It is surely the game's most glaring irony: With each new high-tech invention designed to detect what really happened, Test Cricket becomes more unjust. Hot-Spot is the latest craze condemning umpires. It provides the DNA of every delivery. Sometimes I think I've tuned in to CSI Miami rather than the Cricket. But on CSI Miami they show the evidence to judge and jury. If they didn't, they'd be considered, well, is "monkeys" too harsh a term?
Imagine this … Sharma bowls, Symonds plays his poor cut shot (or was it a cover drive - only he knows), Dhoni gloves the catch, the Indian chorus inquires "Howzat!", (in this case, a rhetorical question) and instead of saying "Not out", an unsure Bucknor says "Hold on a second." Such words are rarely taken literally, but in this case, thanks to the wonders of technology, they can be.
In less time than it takes Symonds to rehearse his shot (and decide what it was) the Third Umpire enlightens Bucknor via his earpiece. A moment's deliberation saves a week's recrimination. The laconic West Indian points his index finger at the sky, where gathering storm clouds have been dispersed. Justice has been done. Sharma's toil is rewarded with his first Test wicket. It's peanuts. With no monkeys.
LBWs. Catches. Any decision could be quickly referred. It'll hold up the game, is the rearguard riposte. Well, if the first two replays are inconclusive, the batsman gets the benefit of the doubt, while the bowler, paceman or spinner, is yet to even return to his mark. We're happy to twiddle our thumbs while a minor decision is made as to whether a fielder's foot touches the boundary rope. Why is a run more important than a wicket?
Short tempers, tall poppies, bad-sportsmanship, a slammed door - cricket's current headache was caused by a cocktail of factors. But without Symonds' stolen century, would Harbhajan have been resentful enough to call the Aussie all-rounder a …?
Symonds' edge put the game on edge, a precipice over which it needn't have toppled had someone bothered to tell the umpire that the batsman was out. We all knew: the larrikin with the beach ball in the Bill O'Reilly; the sleep-deprived Aussie ex-pat in his North London flat. Seagulls at long-off, cats curled on sofas, even goldfish in their bowls were afforded the benefit of a quick television replay. But not the man in the middle - that glorified scarecrow weighed down by discarded jumpers and unwanted hats. Had he, the man who matters, been in possession of all the evidence, cricket's own "monkey trial" might have been avoided and we'd have headed to Perth with a just series still alive rather than a still series just alive.
Unsavoury as they seemed, last month's events were timely. Bucknor's bad decision must prompt the ICC to make a good one. Greg Chappell grey up playing cricket with big brother. It's time the rest of the world's cricketers, and umpires, did too. Otherwise, the only person being a made a "monkey" of by Test Cricket will be the umpire.