Ask ***** - CricketWeb's 'Ask the umpire' thread

[cnerd123]

Dan >>>>>>>> *****.

I don't see a 'Ask Dan' thread

 

[NUFAN]

I don't see a 'Ask Dan' thread

That's because his thread is called Dan Announcements.

 

[stephen]

I for one appreciate all the ***** likes. I mean my posts are all gold and you chumps should like every one of them. But you don't. Except *****. Which must mean he's the most intelligent bloke on the forums.

 

[Bijed]

*****, what is the worst incorrect umpiring decision you have ever made and what is the most heated incident you have ever been caught up in whilst umpiring?

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

A helmet is left near the boundary rope. The ball is struck and, without touching the ground first, bounces off the helmet and over the boundary. Is this a six, or is the helmet considered an 'extension' of the ground or something, meaning only four runs are scored.

11 runs imo

 

[AndyZaltzHair]

we need clarification on the use of red card

 

[cnerd123]

*****, what is the worst incorrect umpiring decision you have ever made and what is the most heated incident you have ever been caught up in whilst umpiring?

Both happened in the same game, which is also my most recent one.

It was the final Women's league game of the season, with the winner of the league having already been decided. One team showed up with just 10 players, the other with 9.

The first innings went smoothly. It was in the second innings where things got interesting. The team with 9 players was now fielding, and defending around 210 in 35 overs, they wanted to make use of the relatively large boundaries and put 5 fielders out in the deep. Basically force the other side to run all their runs and make the boundaries hard to come by.

But that's when the other umpire and I told them they must have 4 fielders in the ring at all times.

That was our big mistake. The rule actually states that they can't have more than 5 fielders outside of the ring. Not that they must have 4 inside the ring. Given they just had 7 fielders to work with, this mean they should have been able to have 5 outside and 2 inside, and not 3 outside and 4 inside that we forced them to do.

We were only alerted to this mistake at the end of the match by another senior umpire who was watching the game (his daughter was playing). It was laughed off because it was an inconsequential league game and women's cricket isn't taken so seriously, but I felt really bad about that.

This game also got quite heated, because the team chasing had their best batsmen (and the best women's batsman in HK) coming in at 3. One of their openers was struggling to time the ball and was exhausted from the heat. She was attempting suicidal runs and hitting the ball in the air trying to get out. The fielding side deliberately fielded the ball on the bounce and didn't even attempt to run her out. The other opener of the chasing side (also a HK player) complained to me repeatedly about this, stating that this was unfair and against the spirit of cricket. Which was strange, because you'd think deliberately trying to get yourself out would be an equally anti-spirit of cricket thing to do. I told her the opener could knock her own stumps over and be out hitwicket if she wishes to stop batting. That stopped the complaints. Eventually she nicked one behind, and the bowler appealed out of reflex (while her teammates stayed silent), and I gave her out.

This same bowler then contacted me later that day. It turns out that little storm in a teacup turned into a big argument between the national players on both teams, and talks about filing a complaint and reporting it to CHK. They were apparently very pissed that national players would approve of such a negative, anti-spirit tactic. I told her not to worry, and that on my end I didn't feel there was any unfair play happening. Told her we have the 'Retired Out' clause for a reason, and it's hypocritical to try and throw your wicket away and then complain if the other team doesn't take it.

It was quite interesting to hear the women's players get so riled up over a meaningless game. It was also interesting to see how far behind they are to men's cricket in terms of experience and strategy - to us the practice of keeping a slow scoring batsmen in and on strike and not even attempting to get him out is basically Cricket 101. To them it was like a whole new controversial tactic.

I also had one incident in a men's game where we had to penalise a team for slow overrate, and we both consulted the playing conditions, followed the rules as they were written, and decided to dock them 2 overs in the runchase. They argued back that it should only be 1 over, and they had a point because the playing conditions had a bit of vagueness and we may have been interpreting it wrong, but we had made our decision and we were also losing time to this argument, so I told them it was going to be 2 overs and final. Then my partner broke (because, in his words, he "doesn't give a **** about the saturday league") and decided to agree with them. That annoyed me a lot. That was probably the most heated argument I've been involved in as an umpire in terms of people actually shouting and arguing back. Didn't matter in the end since the side chasing collapsed in a heap, ironically sparked by a bad decision from the other umpire IIRC.

 

[cnerd123]

we need clarification on the use of red card

Not really sure on how this works ATM, but I'm just expecting to use it whenever a player is being a ****

Quite excited to have more power I can abuse

 

[Lillian Thomson]

I umpired a match a few years ago and feel I abused my power only twice. One I gave a plumb LBW not out on the reasoning that the ball wasn't travelling fast enough to dislodge the bails. Secondly I gave a batsman out LBW even though it hit the bat first because it hit the back of the bat which doesn't count.

 

[andruid]

Has anyone ever been given out for not being given in?

 

[Furball]

Are you really the head of the Kwik E Mart?

 

[fredfertang]

I umpired a match a few years ago and feel I abused my power only twice. One I gave a plumb LBW not out on the reasoning that the ball wasn't travelling fast enough to dislodge the bails. Secondly I gave a batsman out LBW even though it hit the bat first because it hit the back of the bat which doesn't count.

Years ago I turned up to watch a team I used to play for against a team we used to have something of a rivalry with. I wasn't playing because I'd broken my wrist, and was sporting what I admit was a fairly unpleasant bright pink coloured sling. The oppositions' skipper, a complete **** at the best of times, had a few less than complimentary things to say about it and me. He was thick as well because he should have realised that as a non-player who knew the rules I was going to be asked to umpire and duly went out with him when he opened the batting - as he had been quite humorous initially, despite the unpleasant edge, I might have forgotten about his comments if he had not then made a big fuss of ensuring that every inch of 'that ****ing silly girl's sling' was tucked away under the white coat.

Even then I might not have given him out lbw off the second delivery he faced on the grounds the ball wouldn't have hit another set of stumps let alone the ones in front of which the silly **** took an off stump guard, but then I caught a nod from his opening partner out of the corner of my eye so up went the finger - strangely enough his opening partner carried his bat

 

[Red]

Low level cricket in HK often suffers from very poor umpiring, since you don't need to have any qualifications to actually umpire those games. Each club needs to assign umpires for some games in the season, so while some clubs may have proper umpires in their ranks, many don't.

What this means is that the club cricketers have a habit of constantly testing and questioning the umpires. They do so to assess the competence of an umpire they haven't seen before. They'll ask a lot of dumb questions, and keep it up across the game with a tone of sincerity. Bad umpires will eventually stumble, since they don't really actually know the rules and often get caught napping.

Having seen this, I feel the best way to mock an umpire is to just constantly ask him sincere-sounding dumb questions. Ask him to explain the wide rule to you. At a random point in each over, ask him if the over is up, and if not, how many balls to go. Then disagree with him and let him list out all the deliveries in the over so far. If a catch is taken, always ask him if the batsmen crossed, even if it's plainly obvious if they did or didn't. Every time a batsman flicks the balls off his pads off your bowling, ask the umpire if he'd have given it LBW if the batsman missed.

Small, silly things like that will eventually annoy any umpire. And technically you aren't breaking any rules.

In all seriousness, I decided to officially umpire three matches as the end of last season as my back was stuffed. Some players are dicks. In the last game I was umpiring a grade that wouldn't regularly get umpires and the behaviour of some players was appalling (I didn't make a bad decision once!). I know playing lower grades I always loved having an umpire, even if he was **** as long as he was consistent. The behaviour of one team in particular really turned me off.

 

[Dan]

Had a handled the ball decision yet, *****?

 

[honestbharani]

I am sure he makes those decisions frequently.

 

[Dan]

...

 

[cnerd123]

No one has been daft enough to either handle the ball or obstruct the field in any of my games yet

 

[fredfertang]

No one has been daft enough to either handle the ball or obstruct the field in any of my games yet

alternatively they have but you haven't spotted it

 

[Shady Slim]

is it still legal for an lbw if it hits the batsman on the full above the stumps but was going on to hit them?

let's say it's a legal ball by all other means eg not a no ball because the batsman's sulieman benn or smth

 

[Shady Slim]

Both happened in the same game, which is also my most recent one.

It was the final Women's league game of the season, with the winner of the league having already been decided. One team showed up with just 10 players, the other with 9.

The first innings went smoothly. It was in the second innings where things got interesting. The team with 9 players was now fielding, and defending around 210 in 35 overs, they wanted to make use of the relatively large boundaries and put 5 fielders out in the deep. Basically force the other side to run all their runs and make the boundaries hard to come by.

But that's when the other umpire and I told them they must have 4 fielders in the ring at all times.

That was our big mistake. The rule actually states that they can't have more than 5 fielders outside of the ring. Not that they must have 4 inside the ring. Given they just had 7 fielders to work with, this mean they should have been able to have 5 outside and 2 inside, and not 3 outside and 4 inside that we forced them to do.

We were only alerted to this mistake at the end of the match by another senior umpire who was watching the game (his daughter was playing). It was laughed off because it was an inconsequential league game and women's cricket isn't taken so seriously, but I felt really bad about that.

This game also got quite heated, because the team chasing had their best batsmen (and the best women's batsman in HK) coming in at 3. One of their openers was struggling to time the ball and was exhausted from the heat. She was attempting suicidal runs and hitting the ball in the air trying to get out. The fielding side deliberately fielded the ball on the bounce and didn't even attempt to run her out. The other opener of the chasing side (also a HK player) complained to me repeatedly about this, stating that this was unfair and against the spirit of cricket. Which was strange, because you'd think deliberately trying to get yourself out would be an equally anti-spirit of cricket thing to do. I told her the opener could knock her own stumps over and be out hitwicket if she wishes to stop batting. That stopped the complaints. Eventually she nicked one behind, and the bowler appealed out of reflex (while her teammates stayed silent), and I gave her out.

This same bowler then contacted me later that day. It turns out that little storm in a teacup turned into a big argument between the national players on both teams, and talks about filing a complaint and reporting it to CHK. They were apparently very pissed that national players would approve of such a negative, anti-spirit tactic. I told her not to worry, and that on my end I didn't feel there was any unfair play happening. Told her we have the 'Retired Out' clause for a reason, and it's hypocritical to try and throw your wicket away and then complain if the other team doesn't take it.

It was quite interesting to hear the women's players get so riled up over a meaningless game. It was also interesting to see how far behind they are to men's cricket in terms of experience and strategy - to us the practice of keeping a slow scoring batsmen in and on strike and not even attempting to get him out is basically Cricket 101. To them it was like a whole new controversial tactic.

I also had one incident in a men's game where we had to penalise a team for slow overrate, and we both consulted the playing conditions, followed the rules as they were written, and decided to dock them 2 overs in the runchase. They argued back that it should only be 1 over, and they had a point because the playing conditions had a bit of vagueness and we may have been interpreting it wrong, but we had made our decision and we were also losing time to this argument, so I told them it was going to be 2 overs and final. Then my partner broke (because, in his words, he "doesn't give a **** about the saturday league") and decided to agree with them. That annoyed me a lot. That was probably the most heated argument I've been involved in as an umpire in terms of people actually shouting and arguing back. Didn't matter in the end since the side chasing collapsed in a heap, ironically sparked by a bad decision from the other umpire IIRC.

i called a wide once and an old guy with a handkerchief yelled at me from backward point