India ‘umpired’ down but victory for Test cricket

There is no denying that poetic justice was rendered at the Mecca of the gentleman’s game on Monday as regards the purest form of cricket-Test match. The third match of the India-England Test series may have ended in heartbreak for Team India and millions of fans back home, but the team went down with guns blazing till the very last minute. Taken on a positive note, the exciting match saw the pendulum swinging hither and thither, which is what such an extraordinary match should be. In sports parlance, the Lord’s Test had all the ingredients that delights the connoisseurs of the purest form of cricket, for whom who wins eventually hardly matters. They are keen on how the match progresses, the ups and downs and the advantage going from one side to the other down to the wire.

Simply put the third India-England showdown had all the elements that typify a glorious Test match- superlative drama, display of grit and courage, the never-say-die spirit to stay in the hunt staring at adversity and an anti-climax finish but respect intact for the losing side’s display of extraordinary courage when the chips seemed down. Incidentally, till the very end it seemed like the writing was on the wall for both the hosts and the visiting team. The Lord’s Test symbolized the traditionally held notion-no match is won till the last ball is bowled. On that count, it makes for a classic testimonial for Test cricket.

However, caught in this celebratory euphoria one should not forget that the match also brought back the darker and murkier side of the game because of which cricket was in the news for all the wrong reasons before the advent of technology-the dreaded umpiring that was forever biased towards the host team. It is shameful that umpiring raised its ugly head during the third India-England Test and that too in the game’s most revered headquarters. Umpiring was not just shoddy or bizarre but one in which the umpire’s came up with decisions that were hugely condemnable and severely punishable.

Alas, it made for an unsporting cut of a match that should have entered the record books as one of most closely fought Test battles with players from neither side budging or buckling under pressure. It was anybody’s game before tea on the final day. With their dubious decisions, umpires played spoilsport, especially Australian umpire Paul Reiffel, whose contentious decisions not only changed the script of the final day proceedings but also took the match away from India. Questionable LBW verdicts added to India’s frustration even on the fourth day, while the situation worsened on the deciding day, a day when a series of calls went against the visitors.

It blew into a full-fledged controversy after K L Rahul was adjudged not out and the subsequent DRS review overturned the call, a decision that was ridiculed by Sunil Gavaskar. Ravichandran Ashwin was equally furious when earlier Reiffel declared Shubman Gill out caught behind off a delivery that missed the bat by a ‘mile’.

There were several such umpiring goof-ups that turned the tables against India. These will take old-timers back to the pre-third umpire days when biased umpiring invariably destroyed the winning prospects of visiting teams and some decisions almost destroyed the ‘gentleman’ image of the great game and led to international chaos. Hopefully, umpiring blues will be a thing of the past as India heads to Manchester for the furth Test, slated to commence on July 23.