Africa-Press – South-Africa. Proteas team management on Sunday shrugged off a mounting number of mistakes made by umpires Marais Erasmus and Adrian Holdstock in the first Test against Bangladesh at Kingsmead, simply noting that “everyone’s human”.
By the end of the fourth day, the local duo had no less than eight of their combined decisions overturned by the decision review system (DRS).
Erasmus in particular has been scrutinised given that he’s made five of those wrong decisions and just a few months ago received the notable accolade of the ICC’s Umpire of the Year for 2021.
Those glaring mishaps even led to Shakib Al Hasan, Bangladesh’s star all-rounder who’s had to return home due to various family medical emergencies, tweeting that the world governing body needs to resume appointing neutral umpires.
Currently, many bilateral series feature local arbiters because of Covid-19 considerations and logistics.
“I think it’s time for #Icc to back to neutral umpires as covid situation is ok in most cricket playing countries (sic),” Shakib wrote.
Yet, even though the South Africans had their fair share of reviewing to do, there were no concerns over Erasmus and Holdstock’s battles.
“Everybody’s human,” said Proteas batting consultant Justin Sammons.
“We know that the umpires have a good reputation and everybody in the changeroom respects that [they’re human and cane make errors].”
As a consequence, the hosts merely focuses on getting on with the job.
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“We just need to get back to our business, you know,” said Sammons.
“We need to control what’s in our hands and block out any of the situations that are uncontrollable. At the end of the day, umpiring decisions aren’t really in our hands. It’s really about us focusing on our play.”
Rubbing salt in the wound is that, along with the decisions that were overturned, there were three other incidents that the umpires missed that were subsequently shown to have been out.
Proteas No 3 Keegan Petersen survived an edge to the keeper and an LBW decision that weren’t referred in the first and second innings respectively, while off-spinner Simon Harmer was denied the wicket of Najmul Hossain Shanto in the Tigers’ second dig when an snick behind wasn’t sent to DRS.
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