Australian spin legend Shane Warne has lambasted the current lot of international umpires, saying that barring Simon Taufel and Asad Rauf, the standard of on-field officials has hit a 20-year low.
“The standard of umpiring is as low as I’ve known it in 20 years. Yes, it is a difficult job and technology exposes many mistakes, but some of the performances in the Ashes series so far have been pretty ordinary,” Warne said.
“Of the current panel, (Pakistan’s) Asad Rauf is pretty good and (Australia’s) Simon Taufel isn’t bad. Rudi Koertzen has been a good umpire, but unfortunately his time has passed.
Billy Bowden is inconsistent. I think Billy can be very good, but sometimes he gets a bit carried away,” he wrote in The Daily Telegraph.
Warne said a bad decision once in a while doesn’t hurt many but mistakes are happening way too often now.
“Players will accept that the odd bad decision gets through now and again. At the moment, there are just too many.” The flamboyant tweaker said umpires like Daryl Harper and Bowden are very rigid and don’t like admitting their mistakes.
