It's time for ICC to back neutral umpires now: Shakib Al Hasan

The experienced Bangladesh allrounder Shakib Al Hasan has expressed his displeasure over some umpiring errors on the 4th day of the ongoing Durban Test. The fourth day of the Test match witnessed some horrible umpiring calls against the Tigers. Reacting to the same, Shakib tweeted in the afternoon that ICC should reintroduce neutral umpires, which used to be done before the covid pandemic protocols came into existence.  

Bangladesh didn't get some LBW decisions in their favour at the crucial junctures of the match, which let South Africa post a total of 204 in their 2nd innings. Dean Elgar survived a close call after being struck on his back leg; the ball was clipping the off stump in the review. Keegan Petersen was given a second lifeline as he got away with an LBW call against Khaled Ahmed, while the replays suggested that the ball was hitting the stumps. 

Apart from these two, Sarel Erwee was also declared not out by Adrian Holdstock in the 19th over despite being hit plumb in front of the stumps. Although Bangladesh managed to overturn it and get Erwee dismissed for just 8, Elgar and Petersen scored 64 and 36 runs, respectively, which might prove costly for the visitors.  

Later, Bangladesh's team director Khaled Mahmud and selector Habibul Bashar also joined the debate and criticised the home umpires for their on-field blunders. However, while Mahmud openly blamed the aforementioned poor decisions for Bangladesh getting a much bigger target than they would've got, Bashar went extremely vocal in supporting Shakib's tweet regarding the reintroduction of neutral umpires. 

"There was no hiding from the umpiring in today's play. Several decisions went against us. We also missed out on a wicket when the boys seemed scared of taking a review. If we got those decisions, we might be chasing 180 instead of 270. I have seen such inconsistency in umpiring after a long time," Mahmud said.

On the other hand, the former Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar insisted on having neutral umpires and said, "I agree with Shakib. However, since Covid protocols are all but over, we should go back to neutral umpires. When you have a neutral umpire in the middle, even if he makes a mistake, you don't think it's deliberate. Unfortunately, we have seen many decisions in this series which could've gone our way but didn't."

Meanwhile, South Africa are in the driver's seat in the Test match as they have reduced Bangladesh to 11 for three at stumps on day 4.