Life at the stumps

I remember the day Shavir Tarapore, a retired international umpire from Bengaluru, told me something that changed how I saw cricket forever.

He looked me in the eye and said, “Cricket is never played between just two teams. It is played between three — the two sides out there, and us, the umpires.

Umpires become half the size of a playing eleven when you count the TV umpire, the fourth umpire, and the scorers who watch our every signal.”

Even before I became an umpire, I could picture every gesture I would use. One arm sweeping across the chest — four runs. Both arms raised high — a six. Arms stretched wide — wide ball. Standing on one leg with the other half-raised — leg bye. Simple gestures that can change the course of matches and careers.

Tarapore, 67, says: “People think we have the best seats in the house. Maybe we do — front row to every triumph, every disaster. I have watched players reach incredible heights and cross milestones no one thought possible. I have also seen them fall — sometimes because of a decision I made — definitely not intentional but that was the way I saw it.”

He continues: “My international record reads four Tests, 25 ODIs and three T20s on the field. But it is not numbers that stay with you. It is the faces — that split second when a player realises his career might have just changed direction because of where I pointed my finger.”

You want to know what pressure feels like? Stand there while 22 players, thousands of spectators, and millions of viewers on television wait for your decision. You have, maybe, three seconds to make a call that could echo all through cricket history.

Ivaturi Shivram, 71, from Hyderabad, says: “For me, the real reward is when I see acceptance and respect in players’ eyes. Not anger, not frustration — just that quiet acknowledgment that you got it right.”

Training in the ’90s

In the late 1990s, I registered with the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association in Chennai. I sat in classes with eminent umpires who had officiated in Ranji Trophy matches, Duleep Trophy, and the Irani Cup.

Occasionally, international umpires dropped in as guests. The practical tests were brutal — mock games with jurors firing questions from every angle: “What is your call here? What about this? Why did you not signal for this action by the bowler?” Sometimes two or three questions at once, testing not just knowledge but alertness under pressure.

This is usually the process in most state associations to qualify as an umpire. I was so determined to make it to the highest level in umpiring that I picked the brains of every international umpire who passed through Chennai.

I would ask them about the finer points of umpiring, pick up examples from Test matches, and discuss how a situation could have been handled better. In due course, I interacted with Test umpires such as our own Venkataraghavan, A V Jayaprakash, V K Ramaswamy, Piloo Reporter, England’s George Sharp, New Zealand’s Steve Dunne and South Africa’s Rudi Koertzen.

While some welcomed my youthful enthusiasm, it was Dunne with whom I maintained contact through air mail for a couple of years. We would discuss the umpiring decisions from the series played back then. Sometimes we even talked about his own decisions and how he handled pressure. He knows pressure better than most — he officiated in the historic India versus Pakistan Test in Chennai in 1999 along with V K Ramaswamy and others.

I did not miss the opportunity to interact even with Ranji Trophy umpires who came to officiate in matches in Chennai. I always held umpires in high esteem, and sided with them even when they made mistakes. After all, umpires are human. But after I became a journalist and was no longer an umpire, I had to report everything as I saw it, even if it meant highlighting umpiring errors.

Shivram says: “Earlier, seniority took you from state to national level. Now there are Level 1 and Level 2 exams. State associations send their top four to BCCI seminars.”

Tarapore adds: “It helps if you have played first-class cricket.” But Shivram disagrees. “Not necessarily. S Venkataraghavan was an exception — brilliant player, brilliant umpire. But V K Ramaswamy, Swaroop Kishen,
M V Gothoskar, S Ravi — none of them played representative cricket, yet they became exceptional umpires. Some ex-players thought they could just waltz into umpiring and match Venkataraghavan’s stature. Most faded away quickly,” he points out.

Tarapore has given some tough moments to umpires when he was a player (he played six first-class matches for Karnataka as a leg-spinner) but when he faced the music, he says, he understood the players’ emotions. He reminisces: “There have been instances when I reacted to an umpire’s decision I was not happy about. But, when I became an umpire and the players showed their displeasure, especially on the ‘no-ball’ call, I took it with a pinch of salt.”

S Ravi from Chennai was an inspiration. Along with national umpire S Radhakrishnan, he used to conduct umpiring classes at the M A Chidambaram Stadium premises. Later, I became a journalist as it was the only profession through which I could still be close to a sport I loved. I was elated to witness the rise of Ravi. He became the second Indian after Venkataraghavan to get into the ICC Elite Panel of umpires.

More match days

When I started out, umpiring was not a career choice. The match fees barely covered travel. You did it for love and passion, not money.

Shivram says: “In the last 15 years, things improved. Umpires got better pay, and more match days. But in the last couple of years, with nearly 200 BCCI panel umpires, match days are fewer per umpire. For most, it is no longer a full-time profession — only the elite, say the top 10 with IPL postings, can rely on it. So, you cannot categorically say you can take up umpiring as a profession.” The top-grade BCCI-panel umpires (about 30 of them) earn around Rs 40,000 per match day while the rest earn about Rs 30,000 per match day for national tournaments.

Our stay and travel have also improved over the years. We are looked after well — on par with the players. 

Umpires and match referees are a close-knit team, often preferring to have a quiet dinner after a long day on the field to focus on the gruelling work ahead of them the next day. We strictly cannot socialise with players, except for a quick exchange of pleasantries. 

Player interaction

For me, the most memorable moments are those of acknowledgement. I think of England captain Ben Stokes shaking umpire Rod Tucker’s hand at the end of an over in the recent fourth Test at Old Trafford during the India-England series. His ‘not out’ decision was proven right by the Decision Review System, a technology used to review umpires’ decisions. 

In the fifth Test at The Oval, during the same series, Mohammed Siraj, applauded umpire Ahsan Raza for a perfect leg-before-
wicket (LBW) call. Tarapore says: “Seeing is believing. We err like everyone else. The key is to get over it quickly because the next ball is already coming.”

Two years of lower-division umpiring in the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association (TNCA) taught me resilience. School matches were the purest joy — young players just starting out. Some go on to make it big. Others, like Aditya Srikkanth, elder son of cricketer K Srikkanth, played school cricket and age-group matches but left the sport to pursue academics.

Lower divisions in the state league also had notorious teams. I once had to abandon a match due to constant abuse from the dressing room by a batsman I had given run out. I filed a formal complaint.

Then there were the good days — Young Stars Cricket Academy Trophy matches with Ranji players like Sunil Subramanian and P C Prakash.

Umpires, it is often said, are to maintain a distance from the players. But nothing stops us from admiring their achievements. I have seen such legendary umpires as Dickie Bird and David Shepherd from England having a quiet word at the end of an over when a batsman reaches a hundred or a bowler takes a five-wicket haul. 

On the field

We — Tarapore, Shivram, and I — all know the grind: first to enter the field, last to leave. At least six hours under the blazing sun. Players rest when their side bats. We rest only during scheduled breaks. Fitness is essential. Not player-level, but enough to keep us sharp. In the earlier days, most international umpires were over 45 and heavier. Now we take fitness seriously. I have seen Australian umpire Simon Taufel jogging around the boundary, doing his stretching exercises while the players were going through their pre-game routines.

Not only do umpires have to stay physically fit but they also have to mentally attune themselves to the changing conditions. With the national-panel umpires having to officiate in corners away from home, one of the main challenges is the rigorous travel.

Says a player-turned-umpire who preferred to remain anonymous: “We need to get accustomed to different climatic conditions and food habits. India’s topography is so varied that umpires officiate in contrasting conditions that they are not acclimatised to. The matches in east and north-east India start 30-45 minutes earlier than in the rest of the country because of the early sunrise and sunset. So, an umpire has to adjust to those time zones. Besides, like players, umpires too adjust to different formats, from T20s to five-day matches to one-dayers.”

The challenges are not just geographical. Says another umpire who has officiated in women’s matches with an upcoming woman umpire: “It takes time for the players to accept a woman as an umpire. But once they have accepted them, half the battle is won. In ‘maidan’ cricket, it is only the two umpires and the scorer. Also, more matches are held simultaneously and identifying players is a challenge that you overcome with experience. In higher level matches played in the stadiums, you have to deal with the noise from the crowd. Communicating even on a walkie-talkie is tough.”

That said, giving the right decisions consistently is what makes umpires successful. But we have remained in the background, we do not attract fans for autographs or selfies. Even former players, who may have been mobbed during their playing days, are ignored once they become umpires.

Inaccurate tech

Technology has changed the game. There have been varied levels of acceptance from different countries initially. India was the last to fully embrace it — especially the DRS.

Tarapore says: “In today’s age of AI, people are talking about umpires gradually becoming extinct. I don’t think so. Tomorrow, someone could say, ‘Why do you need bowlers? Use a bowling machine’. You cannot take the human touch away from the game.”

Dunne always maintains: “The TV cameras are at an elevated angle behind the boundary lines. They are not in line with the on-field umpire’s eyes. So, there is always going to be that element of doubt. Technology is not 100% accurate.”

Shivram is still not convinced about the accuracy of technology. “I am not a fan of DRS. The blue line (imaginary line drawn between the stumps that one sees on television) is manual. Anything can be done there. On the last day of the recent India-England Test at The Oval, Dharmasena called a run out. Most would have said ‘not out’. I would also have said ‘not out’ as the ball would have missed the leg stump on the face of it. I was shocked to see Dharmasena lift his finger after a while. That blue line could have gone anywhere. But, as it happened, it was the umpire’s call,” he says.

Tarapore echoes Shivram’s sentiments. Tarapore adds: “I used DRS when it was in its initial days, in 2010 and the 2011 World Cup. I believe that technology has taken away the on-field spats between players. Technology is not 100% accurate and with DRS, the accuracy rate is around 90%. There is always scope for improvement.”

Every single ball, every decision — cricket history can hang in the balance of our judgement. We are the third team. And without us the game would not be the same.