Lightning McQueen wrote:Comical scenes at the women’s game Monday night where the umpire fell to pieces.
During the Eastern Park innings Ray Ray was square leg and called a couple of no-balls above waist high, I was near mid wicket and he called them correctly yet the umpire seemed that they were on the way down and didn’t acknowledge the calls, Ray got a bit annoyed and asked if there any need for him to be out there.
Anyway, EP were all out on the last ball of the 19th over, it was going to be the last over due to time but being all out Westies were allowed the full compliment of 20 overs.
I was doing square leg and signalled to the ump twice that I thought the ball was above waist high, he suggested the ball was on its way down, there was a close one that I shook my head at and he came and said to me that I can call them if I think they’re too high. I said to him “hey mate, you’ve ignored me, you ignored the other fella when he was out here, you’re on your own from here”.
The game was getting tense, wickets were falling and runs were slowly getting there, I kept count using my over counter and did regular checks to my daughter via my watch, Westies needed 10 to win and they hit a 4, a single was taken and then another 4 was hit, Tamara was fielding close by so I was updating her, they then bowled a wide and it was relatively quiet on the hill, then the ump fired an lbw.
Apparently there was one run to win with 7 balls left, 1 wicket in hand when the batter gets bowled from a looping full toss where the umpire called no-ball, Ray Ray came on to the ground pissed off with the call as were all of Eastern Park and then the umpire gestured that I had called it to which they were saying no he didn’t, he then reversed his decision and gave her out which then led to mayhem for the next 20 minutes.
The topper was at the height of the mayhem the scorers tallied the books and my count was correct, Westies were up by a run which led to the next lot of rage, this time at each other, not at the umpire anymore.
Same umpire is often late, he didn’t even show up last game so Mossy and I done it without a hitch, although there must have been at least 6 people getting Uber eats delivered to the ground so we thought we were reprieved a few times, it was quite funny.
Also seen multiple games where by the overs are not completed in time (limited overs matches) and the penalty changes week to week. One week the side batting second only faces the same allotment of overs and innings comes to a close - open to be exploited, the next week a runs per over penalty, the third week the side batting second faces the same overs bowled in time but have to complete their allocated overs?
How can ‘interpretations’ vary so greatly from round 4 to round 15? These actually have dramatic implications on Net Run Rates and ability to earn performance points. How can two games in the same week be played to two different rules? And the ‘you’re good enough not to worry about it’ attitude that’s comes from the umpires is simply not good enough.
