Practical umpiring: on not second-guessing players' reactions

Confidence and accepting our limits

It is the fifth ball of the match. The bowler, left-arm over, bowling to the right-handed batsman appeals loudly for lbw. I get a good view: the ball pitches on, straightens and hits the batsman on the toe; there is a gap between bat and ball; I see it clearly. I think for a moment and give it out. It is definitely the correct decision.

Or is it? As the batsman goes past, he makes a genuinely polite enquiry: “lbw?” I nod. But there is a seed of doubt. Why is he asking? Then, I overhear one of the fielders saying: “He’s giving them today.” I doubt myself some more: surely, the fielder’s reaction suggests that the decision is marginal, possibly even generous to the bowler. Doubt creeps in, insidiously; it shapes my umpiring for the rest of the match.

Two overs later, the same bowler appeals for lbw. It pitches on, straightens, hits the batsman halfway up the pad, half-forward, in front of middle. It is absolutely plumb. Stone-dead. And yet my hand doesn’t go up. The bowler is remarkably sanguine. “He got along way across” is all he says. I knew it was out, and the worry gnaws away at me throughout the innings. I lose concentration. One experienced umpire, Steve, used to talk about having ‘tidy’ matches. This isn’t a ‘tidy’ match; I lose the consistency. The batsman makes 50.

In another match, a batsman is closing in on 100, playing a bold, exciting innings. I give him out lbw on 97. He walks off without a word. He wasn’t out; he hit it, he tells me in the interval. I didn’t have a clue.

I tell these stories because it highlights something important: not to second guess players’ reactions. The opening batsman I gave out on the fifth ball of the match thought he was plumb: he was only asking about the lbw because the ball ballooned up off his toe and was caught at first slip. And yet I triaged this question, with an innocuous comment from a fielder, and my own insecurities to reach a conclusion that was wrong and which, ironically, led me to make an incorrect decision. Some players are calm when given out lbw on 97 when they’ve hit it; others argue over a wide in a friendly. So: trying to intuit from players’ reactions whether a correct decision is made, is pointless. The way to good, consistent umpiring, is to build sensible, grounded self-confidence in decision making, and a realistic sense of the limits of our abilities. The paradox is this: we are good umpires, yet we do - and will - make mistakes!