The 12th season of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has witnessed a lot of controversies in its short duration since beginning on 23rd March.
The ‘mankading’ incident in the Match 4 of IPL 2019 saw Kings XI Punjab skipper Ravichandran Ashwin running out Rajasthan Royals opening batsman Jos Buttler before releasing the ball and it attracted massive criticism for the former while a few backed him as well.
During Match 7 between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Mumbai Indians on Thursday, cricket fans and experts witnessed another controversial ending. With RCB needing 7 runs to win off the last delivery bowled by Lasith Malinga, the umpire at the bowling end, S Ravi missed a clear no-ball, and the hosts ended up losing the match by 6 runs.
The incident was discussed during the post-match presentation and RCB captained Virat Kohli slammed the state of affairs right there. “We are playing at the IPL level and not playing club cricket. The umpires should have had their eyes open. That is a ridiculous call at the last ball. If it is a game of margins, I don’t know what is happening. They should have been more sharp and careful out there,” he said.
BCCI official blames CoA
A senior official from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), after the RCB vs MI encounter, has blamed the recent umpiring howlers on lack of professionalism on part of the board.
“What you saw (yesterday) was a symptom and not the disease. It has been two years since the Umpires’ Committee functioned. The process that was followed earlier was that the umpires were assessed during the year by a panel of former umpires who were on the Umpires Committee,” the BCCI official was quoted as saying by the Business Standard.
“The Committee members were also free to visit and see the assessment being done. All of that went out of the window once the Committee of Administrators (CoA) moved in lock, stock, and barrel. Mistakes happened then too but there was a system because of which the umpires were apprehensive since they were being judged,” he added.
CoA disbanded the umpires committee and with no committee there is no set process to recruit umpires, resulting in such disasters. The official also highlighted that the induction process of the umpires was also a hurried one this time ahead of the IPL.
“Cut to 2018-19. There is no Umpires’ Committee in place and when you look a little deeper, there were not even enough umpires prior to the start of the season to officiate in the ‘mega season’ which was an unmitigated disaster if you ask me. So, there was a hurried induction of umpires, which itself was riled in controversy since there were reports that one of the persons involved in the process was also running an academy to prepare umpires for these exams,” he reasoned.
