In usual conditions, cricket umpires don't interfere or interact with players; unless it's necessary. Their main focus is to make judgements as to wether a batsman is out or not out. Other duties include pitch/outfield inspection and to call for lunch; tea or close of play in Test matches. However, there have been two instances of an umpire colliding with a player and one messing up a bowler's bowling action.
The first instance involves English cricketer, Mike Gatting and Pakistan umpire, Shakoor Rana. Rana was no stranger to controversy, with rumours of his bias towards his home nation spreading far. In 1978, 17 years after cricketing ties between India and Pakistan resumed, Rana was in the news after warning Mohinder Amarnath for running on the danger area of the wicket. Sunil Gavaskar, India’s vice-captain during the series, didn't take well to the umpire’s behaviour and accused him of double standards as a similar warning hadn't been issued to Pakistan’s Sarfaraz Nawaz.
In 1984, in a clash between Pakistan and New Zealand, New Zealand skipper, Jeremy Coney, threatened to boycott the game after Rana ruled Javed Miandad not out in controversial circumstances. Such was his reputation that Ravi Shastri, recalling his first tour to the country once said, "Imran and Sarfraz would make the ball swing, and then there were those two umpires, Khizer Hayat and Shakoor Rana." In 1982, Australian fast bowler, Jeff Thomson, kicked down the stumps after being repeatedly no-balled.
In 1987, Mike Gatting was already miffed with Rana for wearing a Pakistan sweater while officiating the first Test of the series, which also saw a number of questionable decisions by the umpires being made. Despite the touring team’s protests, Rana stayed on as the umpire for the second Test.
England had made 292 in the first innings of the second Test and the hosts had been reduced to 77-5. Towards the end of day two, controversy erupted. Gatting got David Capel in to stop the quick single before Eddie Hemmings got ready to bowl the fourth ball of his over. However, as the ball was delivered, Rana, from square-leg shouted, "stop" and proceeded to call it a dead ball.
The umpire accused Gatting of cheating, stating, "You’re waving your hand. That’s cheating." The charge was that Gatting was attempting to change the field as the bowler was running in, which would be against the laws of the game. Gatting responded that he was instead asking the fielder to stop and not move and thus the accusations against him were untrue. Pakistan batter, Salim Malik, defended Gatting, but Rana would have none of it.
An intense altercation followed, replete with expletives, with Rana refusing to continue proceedings unless Gatting apologised. The England player refused, saying that Rana, who was the square-leg umpire, should have never been involved in the game in the first place. With both parties adamant in their stance, the next day’s play was called off.
The incident threatened to affect the political ties between Pakistan and England, which saw the British Ambassador, Sir Nicholas Barrington, rush in to diffuse the situation. Gatting was forced to submit an apology and was threatened that his captaincy role would be taken away. Reportedly, Barrington told his colleagues, "This serious row has been brewing for some time … It could well lead to cancellation of the rest of England’s tour. Needless to say, such a move would create a great deal of ill-will in Pakistan towards Britain, and could have damaging financial and legal consequences."
"This reflects badly on them (the England team), and by association, on us. However poor the umpiring decisions are, and however aggressively competitive their Pakistan opponents are, they should just grin and bear it."
General Safdar Butt, president of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), who later had further talks in Lahore with board secretary Ejaz Butt, said that he would inform England tour manager, Peter Lush, that Gatting, "has to apologise for the filthy language used on the umpire. I am willing to accept that perhaps he is not the best but no-one has the right to abuse him like that."
Gatting had to eventually apologise and the match was allowed to resume. The game ended in a draw. Though the Pcb wanted to persist with Rana for the third Test as well, he was eventually replaced.
Every player of the England team was later paid £ 1 000 as a 'bonus' by the Test and County Cricket Board, with Gatting saying, "I never ever got to the bottom of why the MCC [Marylebone Cricket Club] offered each player £ 1 000 to stay back in Pakistan. They wanted us to stay there and the whole team wanted to come home. I think there was a big trade deal being finalised between Pakistan and England and they didn’t want to break off diplomatic relations."
Rana, on the other hand, said, "In Pakistan, many men have been killed for the sort of insults he threw at me. He’s lucky I didn’t beat him and even luckier no spectator came onto the field to assault him. I have now established that the umpire is the superpower in the game. I did it for umpires everywhere."
In 1958, the then-President, Iskander Mirza, ordered the England party out of the country after an incident involving another umpire, Idrees Beg, in a Peshawar hotel but the cricket authorities prevailed.
The current problems stem from the Pakistanis’ visit here in the summer when their objection to umpire David Constant - on personality grounds, not competence - were overruled by the TCCB (Test and County Cricket Board).
Mike Gatting's finger-wagging exchange with Pakistani umpire, Shakoor Rana, is one of the most notorious images in sport - outwardly an angry contravention by the England cricket captain of the summer game's sporting spirit.
The incident that caused diplomatic ripples from Rawalpindi to Whitehall, documents released reveal that the British ambassador to Islamabad, Sir Nicholas Barrington, shared the widely held belief in Pakistan that Gatting and his side were guilty of bad sportsmanship during the rancorous 1987-88 Test series. Sir Nicholas thought Gatting had behaved "disgracefully."
The documents, released under the Freedom of Information Act, shed fresh light on the row when Gatting, accused of cheating by Rana, stood toe-to-toe with the umpire in a heated exchange that caused the second Test to be stalled for a day and a half.
The documents also show the lengths to which British diplomats went to heal the bad feeling between the two countries. In a post-mortem, Sir Nicholas wrote: "I am afraid there is some truth in Pakistani reports that the England team made a fuss because they were losing."
The row blew up in December 1987 during the second Test match in Faisalabad. England's cricketers had lost the first match and suspected a series of decisions from the Pakistani umpires - the series was played in the days before neutral officials stood in Tests - had not been made in good faith. Rana then called Gatting a "f**** cheating c***." Gatting exploded and the two became locked in a clash in the full view of television cameras.
"Blows were almost exchanged," Sir Nicholas told colleagues in London in a dispatch. "This serious row has been brewing for some time... It could well lead to cancellation of the rest of England's tour. Needless to say, such a move would create great deal of ill-will in Pakistan towards Britain, and could have damaging financial and legal consequences."
He was especially disappointed as the embassy in Pakistan had, "gone out of its way" to help the team in the expectation they would behave well. "This reflects badly on them, and by association, on us. However poor the umpiring decisions are, and however aggressively competitive their Pakistan opponents, they should just grin and bear it."
The British embassy later waived the cost of visas for the Pakistani team to smooth over relations. The row was ultimately to cost Gatting his job, though the selectors waited six months to fire him.
To me, the decisions seem to be biased. This is why it's important to have neutral umpires. This, thus, ensures fair play among both teams. I wouldn't go as far as Mike Gatting. I would, instead, complain to the governing body. It was good to learn that Rana was removed for the third Test. It's never a good idea to confront an official. Harsh punishments will ensue as a result.
Meanwhile, 8 years later, in 1995, umpire, Darrell Hair, had no-balled Sri Lankan, Muttiah Muralitharan, seven times in three overs for throwing. It was the first time Muralitharan had been called in 22 Tests, although the ICC later said that umpires had expressed doubts about his legitimacy for more than two years.
In Tests, Muralitharan was found to exceed the then 5 degree limit for spin bowlers but his unusual action was found to be partially the result of a congenital elbow deformity and after further review, the ICC raised the elbow extension limit to 15 degrees for all bowlers. In 1999, Hair was found guilty by the ICC of bringing the game into disrepute after he described Muralitharan's action as "diabolical." Hair later received death threats that referenced the throwing incident and as a result the ICC decreed that he would not officiate any of Sri Lanka's matches at the 1999 World Cup.
In 2020, 25 years after the incident, he said that he, "wouldn't have been doing my job" had he failed to call Muttiah Muralitharan for throwing. Muralitharan, at the time just 23-years-old and nowhere near the bowler he was to become later in his career, had his action cleared the following May.
On the incident, Hair said, "You try your best to say that it had to stop, or had to change. You understand it's a drastic step to take but when you feel like nothing is going to change, if six or seven wickets fall and you know those balls were illegal, in my mind I wouldn't have been doing my job. I would have felt that I wasn't doing the job that an umpire should do, if I'd just let it go."
Hair remains adamant the responsibility for enforcing the laws of the game rests with the on-field umpires. "That's what was on my mind at the time," he said. "If he was allowed to take wickets in matches when I was umpiring, it wouldn't be right. Nearly every umpire I umpired with had concerns, they just weren't willing to take the final step. But if you've got concerns, it means something is wrong and it should have been dealt with."
Hair called Muralitharan from the bowler's end, with Sri Lankan captain, Arjuna Ranatunga, then switching the off-spinner to the other end, where New Zealand's Steve Dunne was umpiring.
Muralitharan bowled 38 overs for the innings, finishing with 1-124 as Australia recorded a 10-wicket win.
Hair defended his decision not to call Muralitharan from square leg. "I just found it was easier to get an idea of someone's action from the bowler's end," he said.
"I know you've got other things to think about but that was my preference. People said there was a long-held tradition that the umpire at square leg has called a bowler for throwing but there's also a long-held tradition that you don't throw!"
"Sometimes when you're at square leg, it might be easier to see a change in a fast bowler's action but the way he bowled was a little bit different. But he bowled a lot of legal deliveries and you can see the difference in the legal ones better from the bowler's end."
Australia's captain at the time, Mark Taylor, admitted his team was "shocked" at the events of Boxing Day 1995 but noted Hair's actions were consistent with his responsibilities as an umpire. "My interpretation of the old no-ball law was that the onus was on the bowler to prove his action was legal," Taylor said.
"It was worded along the lines of, 'If in the opinion of the umpire, there's a straightening of the arm, the umpire should call no-ball'. Whatever people think about Darrell Hair, he was doing what he thought was right. We all thought Murali's action was unusual but under the law that Darrell was interpreting, he wasn't sure the action was legitimate, so he called him.
"He did exactly what he should do."
This was the third time - all instances in Australia - that Muttiah Muralitharan was called during a live match for throwing. Things came to a head with Arjuna Ranatunga walking off with his team only to resume playing after a 15-minute interval during which many a discussion happened with the officials. A phone call was made back home to cricket board officials too.
There were different reactions to the decision.
Ian Botham, referring to Murali's action being cleared by the ICC committee on bowling actions, headed by Clyde Walcott and comprised of such legends as Kapil Dev, Michael Holding and Bob Simpson:
"The English batsmen will be sick in the stomach. I feel a little bit upset myself. Regardless of whether his action is legal or not, that should be decided at the end of the series. This is a team standing behind its bowler who has been cleared by 40 umpires across the world, but here he is called in the middle of the series…
"I am a bit lost and saddened by the decisions this afternoon. Murali will be feeling sick in the stomach. He will be very confused. He has got 200 Test wickets. He has bowled a lot of overs in this series so far. Then all of a sudden he has been called for having an illegal action at the Adelaide Oval."
Bill Lawry, staying non-committal about the actual action, was not happy with how things panned out on the day:
"I have been through three of these. The first one was Ian Meckiff in Brisbane in 1963, then the second time was Muralitharan when he was called at the MCG [by Umpire Darrell Hair, whom Sri Lanka got barred from standing in their games]. Today the third time has produced the exact same feeling, which is very empty at the pit of the stomach. The ICC, I think now, will be dragged kicking and screaming into the region of solving the mess."
Richie Benaud pointed the ICC to the mess it created when the umpires called bowlers on the field for chucking as opposed to reviewing actions and sending them for remedial work between series:
"How come he can't make a decision on that one with the naked eye and yet he can call the flick of an elbow with the naked eye? Miles out of the ground, but he relies on the replay, which is what he should have been doing with respect to the no-ball."
Tony Greig was a big critic of making that call with the naked eye. The moment Emerson sent a straightforward run-out decision upstairs, Greig was ready to rub it in:
"The fact that this has been allowed to interrupt the day's play the way it did is quite sad. The thing that you have got to ask of the officials is how come it is allowed to happen in the middle of the arena? This is the third time in Murali's case that it is happening in the middle of the international arena. All three times in Australia. And you would think that if somebody's got a doubtful action, they would stop before they get to international cricket."
Ian Chappell called for officials at grassroots levels to be more selfless and watchful.
Doug Insole was member of the ICC committee that cleared Murali, but he explained to Channel 9 the technicalities behind it, and that the on-field umpire had the right to call even a bowler cleared by them. That he said as someone who was called once for throwing, which shocked him too:
"Of those that have been seen worldwide as it were, there are one or two who have got perfectly ordinary basic actions, but who stick a bit extra when they try to do a something bit extra. Then there are one or two who have a basic fault in their action. There is no way that ICC can say that that bloke is never going to throw again. You can't say to an umpire that this bloke is cleared, and he must never be no-balled. What you can say is that as far as the panel is concerned, his basic action, as we have seen it, is okay."
"It is a desperate thing to happen to a bowler. I feel sorry for the man himself. You'd be right in saying - and one has to be a bit cagey about this - on the basis of the videotape that we saw, and I can't remember whether everyone was on the conference call or whether one two were missing or what, but certainly the general opinion at that time was that his action, as seen on that video, was legitimate."
The participants:
"The question of Umpire Hair standing had to do with him making some comments prior to the tour in a book that he was publishing. It wasn't in anyway connected with him no-balling Muralitharan before. As for the other two umpires, there was no question that the Sri Lankan cricket board nor any of the players felt his action was unfair. He had been cleared by 40 umpires all over the world, and a committee that had been set up of eminent bowlers. And one might say, umpires in this tournament as well. So there was never a doubt as far as it was concerned."
"Arjuna [Ranatunga] walked off with his team merely to get a clarification as to how they must proceed. It would have seemed they were leaving the ground, but the basic intention was to find how they should proceed. The point was that the Sri Lankan board would have at no stage wanted the match to be abandoned because after all cricket has to continue and the lofty ideals of the game has to continue. Also we didn't in anyway want to embarrass the Australian cricket board."
"That he is different is one of the problems that has created this illusion: the permanently bent arm of his and that rotation of the shoulder and also the profuse use of the wrists, which I think creates this illusion, which umpires and people find something different in it."
Sri Lanka manager, Ranjith Fernando:
"I never thought it will happen because he has bowled all over the world and we have never had a problem. Then suddenly one guy comes and calls, I think it is really unfortunate. I think it is really bad on Australian cricket's part."
"Murali has a really bad arm, everyone knows about it. The person who calls, he must be having a really really good eye. I think any batsman would love to have that eye… the batsman will get thousand runs in two months if that eye comes to a batsman. The way Murali bowls, if you can pick that, he must be really amazing [to be calling him with the naked eye]."
"We knew we had to win the game for Murali, and that's what happened today. We have the same umpires in a game towards the end of the tour so we have to take a firm decision what to do. We have to consult with the board and then it is up to the board or the government. It is very important. Murali has been a key person for the country and for Sri Lankan cricket."
"I think we never had a problem anywhere except Australia. I think most of the cricketers will try to avoid Australia the way it goes now. And the public has been really bad on Murai, and the media has been really bad. I think it is pathetic that a person who has got 200 Test wickets is only called in Australia. I don't think he should suffer like this. Everyone likes to come to Australia and do well in Australia but it is totally different the image we have now."
Sri Lanka captain, Arjuna Ranatunga:
"I am not allowed to comment unfortunately due to ICC regulations but what I will say is we have been brought up, if an umpire makes a decision, that's it, you accept it and get on with the game. Today that didn't happen."
England captain, Alec Stewart. When told that the action had been cleared by the ICC, Stewart said the umpires still had a right to make the call on the day."
"There you are but again it comes down to the umpire, how he sees things. It is the same with lbw decisions or run-outs or whatever."
I believe the right decision was made. If the maximum degree of bowling angle is exceeded, it's important to follow the rules. Hair not doing this would possibly mean that the rules are flexible and that different umpires can choose to enforce a rule or not; it would depend on their liking. Rules are rules and without rules; disorder will follow and things will soon get out of control. Chaos will occur with no end in sight.