It was interesting to see that the umpires appointed for the Trans-Tasman series were the two West Indian former soccer referees. But now it seems Bucknor is to be replaced by Koertzen.
The reason is "travel difficulties". With the ICC, the real reason could be anything, but I can certainly imagine travel difficulties if the umpires are still forced to rely on Emirates. I'm not criticising the airline (my experience with them is mostly good), but they, or any other airline, are not exactly in a position to offer the best routes between the different cricket nations.
5 comments:
wow... I thought Bucknor was CA's darling... I would have imagined they fly out a charted jet plane just to get him in :).
Jonathan... how about a bet. I bet a pint on someone in the Australian newspaper will say it is the BCCI's fault for the travel issue! Or at least strongly hint at it somewhere!
On second thoughts, forget it... the pint is on me... let's enjoy the cricket... am cutting the whinges :)
Scorpi, I think you'd get pretty short odds on that wager! Myself, I doubt the BCCI even knows Aus-NZ series exist ;-)
Apart from that, I don't think the Australian public have any higher opinion of Bucknor's recent perfomances than the Indian team do. Some reports have called his original appointment "surprising", although I'm not really sure why.
Bucknor was one of my favourites... but it was coming... it has been the case for close to a year where it was apparent that he was slipping up and it all climaxed in that series with India.
For some strange reasons, owing maybe to his past performances, he was kept on the elite panel for this long, on the other hand many have been given the boot when they start to slip up.
A quick question... does the board have the choice of appointing umpires or is there any other panel which decides. Any idea.
I'm pretty sure the umpires are (usually) managed indepedently by the umpire coaches and so on. I wouldn't trust the board with it - it is too political.
Bucknor was one of my favourites, too - maybe as you suggest, he was too respected to be told it was time to put his feet up? There seems to be some idea that he was finally dropped after Sydney, but he stood in the Eng v NZ series this year.
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