Domestic cricketers in dire need for mentorship, says former international umpire K Hariharan

Internationally acclaimed Indian umpire K Hariharan believes that the domestic umpires need proper guidance in order to improve the quality of the decision-making in the match situations. The performance of the umpires this season of the IPL has been appalling. Krishna Hariharan, who stood as an umpire in as many as 34 ODIs and two Test matches, believes the domestic umpires must be monitored by the administration just like the players are kept a close eye on by the selectors.

Recently, Indian umpires have involved in a number of erroneous decisions.  Rohit Sharma was adjudged as leg before even though he nicked the ball. Also, David Warner took the strike in the beginning of an over even though he hit a boundary in the last delivery of the preceding over. There was also a situation of chaos and confusion whether Robin Uthappa was caught behind in the 13th over of the match against SRH, with the lack of communication with the 3rd umpire.

“Like the selectors are constantly watching the players from the sidelines, you have to have mentors for umpires who can monitor their performance during the game and point out their positives and negatives right after the game, As of now, there is nobody to guide Indian umpires on the domestic circuit. We all know some umpiring howlers have been committed in the IPL and that can happen, human errors happen all the time.” said Hariharan in an interview with PTI.

Hariharan continued by saying that there should be a squad of mentors appointed immediately constantly monitoring their performance. “But there should be a group of mentors to tell them after the game where they went wrong, where they went right, were they standing in the right position, things like that. We have already submitted our report (to the BCCI) in which we have proposed the appointment of mentors for the top 25 umpires of the country. The board will decide the future course of action” remarked the celebrated Indian umpire.

He went on to state that this season of IPL has been worst according to Indian Umpiring standards. “Seeing a lot of domestic umpires in this seasons @IPL, and the umpiring standards have been way below par…arguably the worst. Among all #IPL seasons.poor umpiring standards have prevailed for ages in the domestic circuit, it’s just being highlighted through #IPL2017,” he further added.

In the end, Hariharan concluded by saying that umpires are human too after all and their quality is determined by their mistakes and not their good work. “Overall, I would say that Indian umpires are not bad at all. One has to keep in mind that umpires are always judged by their mistakes, not by the good decisions they make.” he ceased.