Call for return of neutral umpires

Followed by a historic ODI series victory against South Africa for the first time on their home soil, Bangladeshi cricketers were looking confident to beat the Proteas again in the first Test match. But we ended up losing the match by a big margin. One of the main causes behind this was questionable umpiring by two on-field umpires, both of whom were South Africans. They could not be as neutral as they should have been.

The Tigers made LBW appeals repeatedly during South Africa's second innings, especially in the first two sessions. But all of those appeals were turned down by the umpires, which the ball-tracking technology showed otherwise. Consequently, a number of decisions went against the Tigers. If those decisions favoured Bangladesh, it could have won the first Test match, too.

Star all-rounder Shakib-Al-Hassan tweeted in response to the poor umpiring decisions in the Durban Test, where he asked the ICC to reinstate neutral umpires in place of umpires from host countries who have been officiating since pandemic began. We completely agree with him, and urge the authorities concerned to call the ICC to go for neutral umpires.

Abu Elias Linkon,

Banasree, Dhaka,

lightening_sparkle@yahoo.com