Robots or Ghostbusters? DRS vs. Umpire Billy Bowden

In the aftermath of the test match between England and India at Lords, the issue of technology in sport has flared up again. People on punditry sofas are tickling their gullets for reflex utterances such as: ‘if it’s there, why not make use of it?’ and sentences starting with: ‘in this day and age.’ The entire Sky commentary team can indulge their obsession with ‘eliminating the howler’. The galloping science of Snicko, Hotspot, Hawkeye and now Roughpatch* (the 5-day pitch wear analyser) has reduced an umpire’s role to that of a fabled druid astrologer divining secrets from entrails, whilst the rest of us idly tap away at our iPhones.

*so state-of-the-art that people are patenting the name; this is my application.

Andy Flower, the only coach who could compete with Shaun Edwards in an ‘Owner Who Most Looks Like Their Bulldog’ competition, has fanned the flames by branding the situation ‘unsatisfactory’, and caused a downright stir when insisting we don’t ‘quibble over millimetres’. But this is all pedantry/pedantics – what’s the difference? Would you rather a human or a machine gets it all wrong and ruins your day? With the former, at least there is a barroom talking-point or a chance to whinge and blame your failings on others. If we are trying to remove human error from cricket altogether, why not fire a bowling machine against a wall (not Rahul Dravid, just bricks and mortar)?

Despite England and India agreeing in advance not to use the Decision Review System for LBWs, Stuart Broad looked as if he was unable to cope without it. His wide-eyed incredulity at a poor decision gave him the impression of a sulky, flush-faced child reeling from the cold reality of mummy not buying ice-creams, but rather going to the post office instead.

Now that umpires have returned to the fray they are no longer merely glorified stock-exchange signallers dressed as butchers. Umpire Bowden doesn’t have to rely on his gimmicky range of flouncing signals, but can actually turn down a plum LBW simply because he doesn’t like the over-confident appeal (when will bowlers learn that umpires don’t equate a man running past the batsman with his arms in an aeroplane shape as a valid enquiry of ‘Howzat?’).

Bowden’s stoic expression at the wicket is sober and a little dewy-eyed, making him look like a forlorn Bill Murray in Groundhog Day coming to terms with an eternal and monotonous suffering. However, when he bursts into sudden movements, he is more like Dr Venkman in Ghostbusters trying to maintain control of his proton pack. A four is greeted by a great arc of the arm sweeping across his body as the back leg slides out, like his alter-ego’s character in Kingpin, with his fingers stuck in the ball, trying to shake it loose. Then there is the crooked finger of doom when giving a batsman out, supposedly down to arthritic joint-ache, though Bowden has left himself open to DRS, declaring this ‘50/50 reality/show’. Martin Crowe’s ruthless one-phrase film review likens him to Bozo the Clown.

But have pity on the lonely life of the umpire. For this weird and wonderful band of brothers are now paraded under the Star Wars moniker of ‘The Panel of Elite Umpires’. They may be sponsored by Emirates, but they are little more than travelling circus acts gaining free air miles. In times gone by, there have been a variety of acts up in lights: the painted ladies of sunblock - Umpire Buknor and Umpire Taufel; the bearded midget - Umpire Willey; Umpire Billy Doctrove, who could be mistaken for a New Orleans boogie woogie pianist; the longest ever name abbreviation to ‘Venkat’; the interval confectionary, Umpire Tiffin; the man whose name equates exactly to his appearance: Umpire Shepherd; the fire-eating blazing effigy of Umpire Hair. And the circus is never even in their home town, the poor things.