How the ICC dragged umpiring into the 21st century
Neutral officials, match referees, the aid of technology and DRS – from the 1990s, cricket’s global body has taken a lot of effort to modernise decision-making in the game
Rod Lyall05-Sep-2025Allegations of biased umpiring are as old as the game itself, and there were many claims by touring teams over the years that home umpires were making decisions against them. It was even not unknown for touring captains and managements to object to the appointment of specific umpires. But as international cricket gained a higher profile, with matches shown live on television, so the pressures grew correspondingly, and incidents like Mike Gatting’s confrontation with Shakoor Rana in 1987 persuaded many that action needed to be taken.The issue, like most other things in international cricket, also had a cultural dimension. Those in the subcontinent were convinced that the complaints against their umpires were racially motivated, part of the old imperial hangover, and that biased umpiring elsewhere was regarded by officialdom with a much more benign eye. That no doubt explained Imran Khan’s initiative to bring in two Indian umpires for a Test against the West Indies in Lahore in 1986, and to fly in two English officials to stand in the series against India in 1989/90.By this time proposals to introduce neutral umpires were gaining momentum at meetings of the Conference, and in 1992 a first, cautious step was taken with an experimental rule requiring one neutral official in every Test match. The first such appointment was the Englishman Harold ‘Dickie’ Bird, who stood in the series between Zimbabwe and India, starting in Harare on 18 October 1992. It took ten years before the requirement was extended to both on-field umpires, and again it was an Indian tour which broke new ground, with Asoka de Silva (Sri Lanka) and Daryl Harper (Australia) standing in the first three Tests in the series in the West Indies in April-May 2002, with David Shepherd (England) and Russell Tiffin (Zimbabwe) taking over for the final two. They were members of the ICC’s new Elite Panel of umpires, which had taken over from the International Panel first established in 1994 and which would now for the most part supply both umpires for Test matches and one for ODIs; the other official in ODIs would be one of the host country’s umpires on the International Panel.Related
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Do we really need neutral umpires anymore?
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The use of Hawk-Eye
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Which team uses the DRS best? (2020)
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The arrival of the DRS (2018)
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The art of the review (2017)
Even more significant than the appointment of neutral umpires was the development of the role of match referee. When Colin Cowdrey, the first independent ICC chairman, introduced a code of conduct for international matches he included a referee as the final judge on disciplinary matters. The first such official was former England captain Mike Smith, who refereed the first two Tests of the 1991/92 series between Australia and India. The path to acceptance of match referees was not entirely smooth. On 28 December 1992 the Australian Peter Burge suspended Pakistan bowler Aaqib Javed for dissent during an ODI against New Zealand in Napier, after he had called umpire Brian Aldridge a cheat, and continued ill-feeling between the teams led Burge to warn both sides that he would take further action under the code of conduct if they did not moderate their behaviour.It helped considerably, though, that the ICC was quickly able to assemble a panel of respected referees who had had distinguished careers in international cricket. In addition to Burge, the first cohort included Pieter van der Merwe and Jackie McGlew (South Africa), Clive Lloyd and Cammie Smith (West Indies), Raman Subba Row (England), Srini Venkataraghavan (India) and Frank Cameron (New Zealand). Between them they were able to ensure that the code of conduct became an accepted feature of the cricket landscape, and that their own role as arbiters of on-field incidents was increasingly taken for granted. With these two developments, neutral umpires and match referees, the ICC clearly expanded its role in the management of international cricket.This was not achieved, however, without challenges to its authority, principally from the BCCI. In November 2001, match referee Mike Denness penalised six Indian players for their conduct during the second Test at Port Elizabeth, suspending Virender Sehwag for one match and handing suspended sentences to five others, including the captain, Sachin Tendulkar. Tendulkar appeared on television coverage of the match to have been altering the condition of the ball and Sehwag allegedly charged at one of the umpires, while the other four were reported by the on-field umpires for various disciplinary infringements. BCCI president Jagmohan Dalmiya immediately exploded, accusing Denness of racism, demanding his replacement as referee, and threatening to call off the third Test at Centurion.Terrified of the financial consequences of a cancellation, South Africa backed the BCCI position, while the ICC dug in, refusing to replace Denness for the remaining match. When the USB and BCCI appointed former South African Test player Denis Lindsay, an ICC referee, to take over from Denness, the ICC’s response was that the game would no longer be regarded as official. Dalmiya objected that they had no power to withdraw official status, but the ICC rightly saw that what was at stake was ‘the right of the ICC, as the world governing body for cricket, to appoint referees and umpires, and for those officials to make decisions which are respected by both players and Boards’. If this were not accepted, it added, ‘the sport could descend into anarchy’. There were even fears that this seemingly minor episode could lead to a split in world cricket along racial lines.An advertising hoarding in Mumbai in 2001 refers to the Mike Denness affair•Sebastian D’Souza/AFP/Getty ImagesThe match was duly played, without Sehwag and with Lindsay in charge, South Africa winning by an innings and 73 runs. But the dispute did not go away. With England due to play India in Mohali at the beginning of December, the Indians claimed that Sehwag had served his suspension and was now eligible to play, while the ICC position was that since the Centurion match had been unofficial, he had to miss the Mohali Test.After some brinkmanship from Dalmiya the BCCI agreed not to play Sehwag, while the ICC undertook to review Denness’s decisions and to reconsider the status of the match at Centurion. As if to demonstrate its confidence in Denness, though, the ICC appointed him as referee for the forthcoming series between Pakistan and the West Indies in Sharjah, and at the same time established a commission, chaired by the South African judge Alby Sachs and also including the former Test cricketers Majid Khan (Pakistan) and Andrew Hilditch (Australia), to investigate the possibility of a right of appeal against a referee’s decision, along with the introduction of a code of conduct for referees, and the need for greater consistency in their decision-making.But Dalmiya was still not satisfied: he objected to the ICC’s nominees to the commission and complained that none of the ten candidates he had proposed – two of whom, Richie Benaud and Imran Khan, had declined – had been included. By February 2002 it was evident that the BCCI was simply refusing to co-operate with the commission, Dalmiya insisting that it be expanded to a membership of ten or its
deliberations put on hold. He took his demand to a meeting of the Asian Cricket Council in Sharjah later that month, where he received the support of the other full members from the region. The matter was thrashed out at the executive board in March, with the Denness affair now referred to a ‘Disputes Resolution Committee’, chaired by Michael Beloff QC and including three board members: Peter Chingoka of Zimbabwe, Bob Merriman of Australia and Wes Hall of the West Indies.The board also agreed that in future all disciplinary charges would have to be laid by the umpires – it was an obvious flaw that Denness had charged Tendulkar and Sehwag himself and then judged their cases – and that a match referee would be allowed to explain his decisions at a press conference, as Denness had been unable to do. The only point on which the ICC was able to score even a symbolic victory was that the disputed third Test in South Africa remained unofficial.The umpiring errors in the 2008 Sydney Test between Australia and India prompted the ICC to introduce the Decision Review System•Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesAt the same time that it was moving to take control of umpiring and refereeing, the ICC was also adjusting to the technological possibilities of improved television coverage.Calling together the leading international umpires for a conference in August 1993, the board invited them to consider ways in which a third umpire might review on-field decisions in Tests and ODIs where appropriate TV facilities were available, an option which they had just approved in principle. This revolutionary use of technology, which would eventually evolve into the DRS system of player reviews, had been pioneered by the South Africans in Durban in 1992, when two cameras were used to enable close run-out decisions to be resolved. The number of cameras was soon expanded to four, and the technology proved useful in determining not only run-outs, but also doubts about whether the ball had touched the boundary rope.By 1995 the umpires were ready to take the system a stage further, recommending that it could also be applied in determining whether a catch had been taken cleanly or not. For traditionalists, all this was an erosion of the power of the on-field umpires to make all the decisions, but others, including many of the leading umpires themselves, saw it as a way of avoiding mistakes and reducing tensions on the field. Discussing the issue in 2003, ICC general manager David Richardson confirmed that technology ‘will not be introduced at the expense of the umpire’s status as the key decision-maker in relation to the rules and regulations’.For the 2004 Champions Trophy, however, in addition to connecting the on-field umpires’ earpieces (now standard equipment) to the output from the stump microphones (ditto), decisions on front-foot no-balls were experimentally transferred to the third umpire. Richardson presented this as beneficial to the standing umpire, who ‘will not need to adjust his line of sight from the bowler in delivery stride to the batsman receiving the ball’. And Speed was adamant that umpires’ decision-making authority was in no way under threat; “I do not believe,” he insisted, “the game or its followers want to see umpires reduced to the role of coat racks.”DRS changed the way the game was played, allowing players for the first time to challenge umpires’ decisions on the field•Hannah Peters/Getty ImagesSurveyed before the tournament, international captains expressed themselves in favour of the use of technology, although Australia’s Ricky Ponting and Zimbabwe’s Tatenda Taibu had more reservations than the rest. In this first phase it was up to the on-field umpires to call for assistance in making marginal decisions, but in March 1997 a Colombo-born lawyer named Senaka Weeraratna proposed that the use of technology could be extended to give players the right to challenge decisions with which they disagreed.The mental shift required here should not be underestimated. It had always been a fundamental principle that the umpire’s decision was final and absolute, and the notion that it might be overturned through the use of technology after objection by a player seemed to go against everything that the game had always stood for. After all, the code of conduct which Cowdrey had introduced imposed clear penalties for player dissent. At the same time, it could not be denied that umpires were far from infallible, and even with neutral officials there were obvious cases, increasingly shown up by the improved technology, in which mistakes were made.One of the worst cases was the New Year’s Test in Sydney in 2008, in which umpires Steve Bucknor and Mark Benson made a series of glaring errors, most, but not all of them, contributing to India’s 122-run defeat. Andrew Symonds admitted that he was wrongly given not out on 30 on the opening day, going on to make an unbeaten 162, and with the Indians set to make 333 to win on the final day, Rahul Dravid was given caught behind for 38 off a Symonds delivery which had struck the knee roll and Sourav Ganguly was out to a slip catch off Brett Lee which was generally believed to have been grounded. The BCCI was furious and instructed the team management to complain to match referee Mike Procter.The match had also seen an on-field incident between Symonds and Harbhajan Singh, which led to the Indian spinner being charged with offensive behaviour. He had, it was claimed, called Symonds, one of whose birth parents was Afro-Caribbean, a “monkey”; Harbhajan always denied this, but there was no question that the Australian had been subjected to monkey noises by Indian crowds at several venues, and Symonds had suggested that Harbhajan was a contributor to ill-feeling between the sides. The spinner was suspended for three Tests, but he and his team-mates continued to insist that there had been no racist taunt. The BCCI stated that for them “anti-racial stance is an article of faith as it is for the entire nation which fought the apartheid policies”. Since they had initially tried to claim that the monkey noises from the Indian crowd had been worship of the monkey-God Hanuman, this did not perhaps ring entirely convincingly.Howzzat out: television replays and tools like Hawk-Eye and infra-red cameras have turned every fan into an expert at umpiring•IDI/Getty ImagesIndian manager Chetan Chauhan also complained that Brad Hogg had used the word “bastard” in sledging Anil Kumble and Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a charge which was subsequently dropped, a decision which Hogg himself described as “a kind gesture, lovely gesture”. Amidst rumours that the tour would be called off, the ICC confirmed that Bucknor would stand in the third Test in Perth, but then replaced him the following day with the New Zealander Billy Bowden. This was greeted by the BCCI’s chief administrative officer as ‘a satisfactory decision’, although Malcolm Speed was quick to insist that all the ICC was trying to do was to ‘take some tension out of the situation’, and that Bucknor would continue to umpire elsewhere. They also flew the chief match referee Ranjan Madugalle in to try to mediate between the captains, while retaining Procter as the match referee.The New Zealand High Court judge John Hansen was appointed to hear the Harbhajan appeal, which was delayed until after the completion of the series. With the player claiming, supported by Sachin Tendulkar, that what he had actually said was “teri maa ki”, an admittedly obscene Hindi term referring to one’s mother’s genitalia, Hansen found the charge of racial abuse unproven, and reduced the sanction to 50% of the player’s match fee. But the judge also commented that the ICC had only revealed one of Harbhajan’s four previous convictions, a result of database and human errors. Had he known, he stated, of an offence in 2001 which had earned the player a one Test suspended sentence and a fine of 75% of his match fee, he would have taken a different view when determining his sentence. Once again, the ICC had managed to emerge with black marks against its reputation.The mistakes made by Bucknor and Benson, however, remained irrefutable. In March 2008, prompted by ICC general manager Richardson, the Chief Executives’ Committee agreed to try out a review system broadly along the lines suggested by Weeraratna, and commissioned the cricket committee, which, under the chairmanship of Sunil Gavaskar, had been sceptical about the idea, to establish the guidelines for its implementation. Ironically, in view of subsequent events, Sri Lanka and India tested it during their series which began in Colombo that July.Using slow motion replays, noises from the stump microphones which had now become standard equipment in international cricket, and the Hawk-Eye technology to track the ball up to the point of impact (but not to predict its future trajectory), the third umpire would review a decision should this be requested by either side. The testing continued, and by February 2009 Haroon Lorgat was able to argue that ‘[t]he referral system has improved the rate of giving correct decisions’; the rate of correct decision-making had risen from 94% to 98% as a result of the reviews.Pitch PublishingContinuing to tweak its system, the ICC now added Hot Spot, a technology which created infra-red images to confirm that the ball had touched bat, glove or pad, to its battery of measures informing a review. The experiment was sufficiently successful for it to be adopted formally for Tests in November 2009, with nine of the ten full members supporting it; the BCCI stood out against it as the Indian players believed that it had worked against them during that Sri Lanka series. Under the Decision Review System (DRS), players could challenge up to two decisions per Test innings, losing one of these challenges should their request for a review prove unsuccessful.In May 2011 the ICC cricket committee recommended that DRS be used in all Tests, and that it should also be employed in ODI and T20 series with one review per side per innings. The BCCI continued to object to the use of Hawk-Eye, insisting that it would only accept the system when it was “foolproof”, and in 2011 the ICC had to back down from its position that the use of DRS was mandatory, accepting that it would only be implemented where both sides agreed. When an attempt was made to leave the decision to apply DRS to the home board, Srinivasan reportedly threatened that India would pull out of any tour where the system was to be used. Not until 2017 was it finally agreed that it would apply uniformly in all series and tournaments involving the full members.Reviewing the situation in his 2013 Cowdrey Lecture, Simon Taufel reflected on how television and the introduction of technology had altered the game. “In today’s cricket,” he observed, “the decision of the umpire is scrutinised by all these cameras including slow motion, ultra motion, hot spot front on, hot spot leg side, hot spot off side, ball tracking and prediction, Snicko, stump audio, the mat and then by up to three commentary experts upstairs in the box.” And while such detailed scrutiny eliminated the most obvious errors and many less obvious ones, it also made every viewer an umpire and put more pressure on players and umpires.The system has continued to be tweaked and improved, introducing the umpire’s call to allow for extremely marginal lbw decisions, renewing the number of challenges allowed after 80 overs in Tests, removing the soft signal in cases where there was doubt whether a catch had been cleanly taken, and so on.A decade on from Taufel’s lecture it takes an effort to remember how controversial the use of technology to assist the on-field umpires once was, and while there will always be marginal cases where one side feels aggrieved and the armchair umpires bitterly disagree with each other, one effect of DRS has been to demonstrate how extraordinarily good most international umpiring actually is.