Kingston: The recently concluded third Test at St. Kitts saw an ignominious debut. No, it wasn't a batsman copping a king pair, nor a bowler suffering figures of nought for 200. It was, in many ways, worse, and hence the advised use of the word `ignominious.'

South African umpire Brian Jerling had a shocker. Now, umpire bashing is quite the fad — an exercise often undertaken from the comfort of a beanbag and the benefit of replays, slow motion or otherwise, and ball-tracking software Hawk Eye.

Tough job

The men in coats have an incredibly tough job; their case for being given the benefit of doubt on marginal decisions is well argued. Save for an improved use of technology (even that depends on the competence of the person using it), our expectations of them should be tempered by reason. A vital parameter of judging them is consistency of decisions.

That however is no excuse for incompetence. On the evidence of the third Test, Jerling was both incompetent and inconsistent. Leg-before decisions have the escape clause of interpretation: after all no one can ever be certain — implies quantum theory — what will happen if the pad doesn't intervene. This clause allows the existence of two schools of umpiring on the lbw: the not-outers, more prone to negate, and the outers, more inclined to affirm.

Yet both schools converge on the `plumb' decision — the dead-eye certainty that is as certain as certain gets. Jerling started off as the extreme not-outer: he didn't give any West Indian batsman playing forward to Anil Kumble. The track kept low, the maximum a Kumble top-spinner turns — it isn't supposed to — is the width of a stump; an outer would have given most of them. Hawk Eye gave every single one.

Just as it seemed that Jerling would raise his finger only to one that pitched middle, headed straight, and thudded into shin — Collymore wasn't given in these circumstances! — he about-faced, and adjudged Rahul Dravid and Mohammad Kaif out.

Unlucky Kaif

The skipper was hit marginally on off, the ball would have gone on to hit. No one who hadn't seen Jerling at work previously would have raised an eyebrow; Kaif was unfortunate — the ball would have had to defy the natural world to cannon into leg. Then, Jerling pulled another U-turn, and refused to give Yuvraj Singh, hit on the back-foot in front of middle, on the final day.

The problem, unfortunately, didn't restrict itself to the lbw. Jerling failed to see two bat-pad catches — Sarwan and Samuels, the beneficiaries, went on to make big scores — raising serious questions of competence. The fallout of this, from an Indian perspective, was it cost Dravid's men a victory. On conservative count, India was denied ten eminently qualified leg-before appeals — Kumble (7), Sehwag (1), Munaf (1), and Harbhajan (1) — beside the two bat-pads.

Making the difference

Now, causality can't easily be identified, but it's incontrovertible that these 12 decisions, along with the two that reduced India to 159 for five played a major part in giving West Indies the upper-hand. India still had a shot at glory on the final day, further illustrating the difference these decisions would have made.

Not that the Indians made any excuses. Both Dravid and Harbhajan said it was part of the game, and that too only when specifically pressed.

Jerling will stand in the fourth Test here at Sabina Park.

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