Stumped: One Cricket Umpire, Two Countries
Stanley Carvalho |Published: 2020
Pages: 214
Author: Harrison, Richard
Publisher: Private
Rating: 3 stars
Cricket literature is replete with books on players, the game, history, culture and the impact of this popular, old sport.
Sadly, there aren’t many books on umpires. ‘Slow Death’ by Rudy Koertzen, ’80 Not Out’ by Dickie Bird and ‘Tom Smith’s Cricket Umpiring & Scoring’, spring to mind.
Cricket-crazy Richard Harrison’s Stumped is an easy, breezy read of his umpiring career, first in England and later in Australia. The 200-page book with short chapters is full of personal stories, amusing anecdotes and insights about umpiring, touching upon specific matches.
What makes the memoir unique is the author’s account (in the latter part of the book) of umpiring women’s cricket in Melbourne, Australia, thus offering a peek into two cricketing genders. The first part focuses on umpiring men’s cricket in Kent. England.
From village, school and social fixtures, Harrison graduated to umpiring Kent League matches, coming face-to-face with challenging as well as unexpected moments on the field and gaining valuable experience.
Aside from accounts of the matches, he writes about the picturesque, wonderful grounds, the pubs and the grand teas.
Following his stint in England, Harrison returned to home turf and reached out to the convenors of the Cricket Victoria Premier Umpire’s Panel, insisting he’d like to continue to don the white coat and black pants to officiate “exclusively” women’s cricket matches. As luck would have it, the Panel relented and thus began his second innings as umpire in Australia’s largest city.
Predictably, it was hugely enjoyable for Harrison to umpire the club and premier matches in Melbourne, some of which he recounts with feeling and nostalgia. While citing instances of players’ anger on being given out, he applauds how talented some of the Australian women cricketers are.
Talking of women’s cricket, an edifying fact I came across was about the Duke of Dorset, “a man who can realistically boast being one of the very first supporters of women’s cricket.” It was he, who, in 1773, gifted the cricket ground to the town of Sevenoaks in Kent. He also convinced his mistress (the Countess of Derby) to arrange and host a ladies’ cricket match and encouraged ‘ladies of quality and fashion to take up cricket.’
Notably, Harrison makes no bones in outlining the mistakes he committed while umpiring, even apologizing to the players.
Whatever may have been his initial motivation, he discovered that he loved being a cricket umpire, even if it was an entirely unplanned journey and which lasted just twelve years.
I had the best seat in the house, and the best view of a wonderful and ancient game, in some of the most beautiful surroundings in the world, he writes with obvious satisfaction.
Harrison’s candour and self-deprecating humour shine through the book.
Umpiring Test cricket and the more popular international one-day matches may be missing in Harrison’s story, yet Stumped is an engaging, fun read for anyone interested in cricket umpiring, particularly women’s cricket.
Our guest reviewer Stanley Carvalho is an independent journalist and media trainer from Bangalore
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