Steve Bucknor

London: The ICC on Thursday hit back at Steve Bucknor for claiming that broadcasters misused technology, saying the veteran umpire “was a very good example” of why the game needed to rely more on TV footage.

“Umpires are always defensive about their own decisions,” ICC’s general manager (cricket) Dave Richardson said.

“I often point to him as a very good example of why we need to give technology a go,” he told a sports TV channel.

“He’s done particularly well this year. After not having a great 2005, he’s averaging around 96 per cent of his decisions being correct, and yet he’s made one or two decisions which have come in for terrible criticism from the media and from fans writing in to us.”

Richardson said the ICC had chosen the lesser of the two evils ? whether to risk compromising the spirit of the game or avoid umpiring controversies.

“It’s kind of a lesser of two evils. We don’t want to compromise the spirit of cricket and we don’t want the players having little respect for the on-field umpires. On the other hand, we want to avoid umpiring controversies.”

Bucknor, international cricket’s most experienced match official, had claimed that inaccurate on-screen graphics and incomplete video clips had been used to make umpires look bad.

His allegations came in the wake of the ICC Cricket Committee’s proposal to allow teams three appeals per innings against umpiring decisions. The proposal, if ratified by the Full ICC Board, would be tried out at the Champions Trophy in India in October-November.

Richardson did not say whether they would ask Bucknor to provide more details of his allegations concerning the use of TV replays. ICC media and communications manager Brian Murgatroyd said extending the use of technology was an issue, which needed to be discussed and debated. “From that point of view, I guess Steve has contributed to the debate,” he said. (PTI)