IN LIGHT of several glaring mistakes at the level of the match officials, Guyanese commentator Joseph ‘Reds’ Perreira has suggested that the Caribbean Premier League (CPL) implement a review system for the next edition of the tournament. Speaking exclusively to the Guyana Chronicle, the veteran commentator was firm in citing that the job of the standing officials in a T20 game is not a walk in the park. He indicated that there are several factors that need to be taken into consideration when umpiring.
“The umpires need as much support as possible. Umpiring T20 cricket is not easy with that kind of noise that is going on. The concentration has got to be at the highest. I think that the line calls are being looked after fine, but maybe the CPL can consider two reviews. There were one or two crucial decisions that the general public has been talking about that didn’t go the way of the side bowling and maybe didn’t go the way of the side batting.”
However, he warned that those reviews must be short in terms of the length of time spent reviewing, adding that fans should not be kept waiting for periods while deliberating is ongoing.
“Maybe two appeals allowed which have got to be very tight and it can’t last more than a minute. One of the criticisms of the ICC-type of replays is that it takes too long. I think that there could be a little bit of help there for the umpires because it’s awfully noisy. I think if you do an interview with any of the umpires, they’d tell you that 20/20 is the hardest game to do because you have to be thinking of so many things as the ball is being bowled.”
The most recent major blunder on the part of the standing officials was the decision Friday evening to give Pakistani and Warriors batsman Umar Akmal out via leg-before-wicket (lbw) when it was glaring that there was an inside edge off the bat onto the pads. Several calls have been made by officials as well as fans of the game for the CPL to put corrective measures in place in an attempt to stop these bad decisions.
GAW’s biggest loss was Guptill.
The veteran commentator also weighed in on the local Franchise, the Guyana Amazon Warriors (GAW) and their mixed fortunes at the 2015 edition of the tournament. He noted that there were several obvious setbacks to the Warriors’ plans but commendable efforts by specific departments. He noted that paramount to the Warriors problems was the loss of New Zealand opener Martin Guptill.
“I think we need to go back to the loss of Guptill. Guptill and Simmons had been one of the best opening partnerships in the CPL and why Guptill was not maintained, I do not know. You have to know a lot of what goes on about bidding and at what point do you bid and if somebody had outbid you and got Guptill ahead of you, there’s nothing you can do. They didn’t get the usual good starts that Guptill and Simmons would produce.”
He noted that the Amazon Warriors have not made bad decisions in terms of the players bought this year, but added that luck seemed to be on their side.
“Guyana did go for Tillakaratne Dilshan because of the extra string to the bow of his bowling but that unfortunately backfired. They didn’t know at the time that he would have been recalled. Malinga was possibly a disappointment for Guyana that he became unavailable. So maybe things didn’t go all that right. Brad Hodge was in fact a nice person to acquire. The spinners were outstanding, they bowled extremely well. I think the main issue was the batting.
He noted too that the obvious bad decisions have hampered games for them but also maintained that they must be able to keep the scoreboard ticking over and not wait solely on the boundaries. Their batting has not been doing such in many games.

By Stephan Sookram