THE 'U' FACTOR
By:Twinkle MukherjeeIndia's tour Down Under is a prestigious spectacle in many ways than one.So winning is very important there. But what it takes to win this very important series?
Well, apart from good performances, there are plenty of things which are required to win a match & series. They are positive attitude, aggression,hunger to win,capability to win over the battle of nerve & mind game...these are collectively known as the X factor.But that has become old these days.The new factor which is most important now to conquer is the 'U' factor or 'The Umpire Factor'.
The officials are the new players who are playing the most important role in the matches rather than the players of the both of the team.Umpires are certainly ready to edge out team performances.After the second test between India & Australia at SCG,it is clear that umpire's role has an edge over any team performance because only the umpires were good enough to seperate the two teams.
India lost the game by 122 runs where the difference was created by the umpiring errors.And sadly,almost all the errors commited by them went against India.It was good enough to sink Indian team's hope of equalizing the series in the deep sea.Twelve blunders overshadowed the right spirit of the game very easily whereas ten mistakes among them went against the visitors to push them into the corner.The dreams of winning the match or atleast fighting to keep the series alive were faded away.
The thing started when Ricky Ponting, the aussie skipper,edged to a Saurav Ganguly delivery drifting down the leg.Punter was standing on 17 then.But Mark benson was not at all interested in it.Then Benson decided to rule him out on 55,when he actually wasn't.Umpire declared it as leg before where it had thick inside edge off his bat.The drama was then carried on by India's lifetime-foe umpire Steve Bucknor.He turned down the appeal when Andrew Symonds was clearly caught behind off Ishant Sharma's delivery on 30.Everybody except Bucknor managed to hear the clear sound of nick.Later, the snicko also proved it as a thick inside edge.Mistakes continued to roll on when Symonds was stumped out on 48.Both on-field umpires couldn't conclude it,so it was reffered to the third umpire Oxemford by Bucknor.But the tragedy happened when even third umpire Oxemford gave it a not-out after seeing it repeatedly on TV.But it was only the beginning.It went on & on for the next four days as well.They appealed again for another stumped out.Again, the batsman was Andrew Symonds who was then on 148.Bucknor again came for his survival.Symonds survived for the recorded 3rd time.Then he went on to score an unbeaten 162.
But things would have been entirely different,had he been given out when he was on 30.At one stage,Aussies were 134/6.But later,they managed to make it strong with the help of the officials.
Even it wasn't the end of it.Wasim Jaffer was bowled by Brett Lee but nobody noticed that it was actually a no-ball due to over-stepping.Still India managed to take a 69 run lead with the help of the swashbuckling centuries from VVS Laxman & Sachin Tendulkar.Sachin was supported with immense sort of help from the lower-order batsmen like Harbhajan Singh,R.P.Singh & Ishant Sharma.
Those efforts went in vain when umpires bounced back with their blunders.Mike Hussey survived for a couple of times by Mark Benson & scored 145 not out & made a decent partnership of 160runs with Matthew Hayden.Umpire turned down a leg before appeal & then a caught behind appeal from Kumble & R.P.Singh when he was standing on 22 & 45 respectively.
Umpires had continued to give the privileges to the World Champions even when India came on to bat on day5.India had lost 3 early wickets of Jaffer,Laxman & Tendulkar before Rahul Dravid & Saurav Ganguly grasped the thing.They were looking really strong and weren't looking like that easily beatable.But suddenly Dravid had been given out on 38 as caught behind when the ball had clearly hit his pad before it reached to the wicket-keeperAdam Gilchrist.His bat was completely hidden behind his pads at then.But that was also not enough.It went to the culmination when Ganguly nicked a Brett Lee delivery to the 2nd slip fielder Michael Clarke but it wasn't clear whether he caught it clearly.Benson couldn't see it clearly either.In that case, he should have asked the square-leg umpire Bucknor first.Then it should have been 3rd umpire's decision.But leaving them all,he asked Ponting & raised his finger when Ponting reffered it as out.Ganguly who was waiting out there till the final decision was completely astonished after seeing Ricky Ponting to signal on that dubious catch.He was amazed to see Ponting doing the job of the umpire out there.Thus, India's cances to set a comeback in the series have been spoilt.
Now, if we go down the memory lane,we would be able to see that the world champions have got this biased helps in favour of them on many occasions.Sri Lankan team also had to suffer the same problem earlier bt that was not so much deceitful like this.
So,here comes a serious question now.Should the cricket world connive at the injustice which was done by the umpires or should they come with a strong protest against this abjects?
Isn't it the high time to debug them all?
Thank you!
