Anil Kumble: For cricket to kickstart, its best to use local umpires

Anil Kumble gets into details on why neutral umpiring began tw decades ago

Anil Kumble, ICC Cricket Committee Chairman, recommends an additional review as cricket looks to restart post-Covid-19. Speaking exclusively on Star Sports show Cricket Connected, Kumble said, "I think the need of the hour was to start cricket. We also felt that because of travel restrictions, there could be quarantine measures. You don’t have too many elite umpires in the panel. So, we felt that for cricket to kickstart, its best to use local umpires. Most countries don’t have the experience, the local umpires don’t have the experience of a Test Match or being part of a Test match. The reason that we started neutral umpiring 20 years ago was there was the perception of bias."

He continued, "The recommendation for an extra review for both teams is not to root that out but we felt that there could be potential inexperience being in a Test match situation, which is why the advantage of the additional review would probably benefit both the teams. That’s one of the reasons why we recommended that we should give the additional review to both the teams in these scenarios."

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