Ramiz calls for an end to neutral umpires

Former Pakistan batsman Ramiz Raja believes the International Cricket Council (ICC) should change the ruling for the presence of neutral umpires in International cricket.

Umpiring decisions have received considerable backlash after various lacklustre decisions during the 2019 International Cricket Council (ICC) World Cup. The first Ashes Test match between Australia and England had 10 successful reviews against the umpire’s decisions.

Raja in a youtube video stated that the umpiring standards had fallen drastically and the system required changes inorder to survive.

“The problem now is that controversies are still happening despite neutral umpires, because the standards have fallen drastically. We saw that there were a lot of mistakes in the World Cup, similar was the case in the first Test of Ashes,” said Raja.

The 56-year-old explained that neutral umpires were needed in order to avoid cheating. However the rise of technology has rendered that argument invalid.

“There is no room for cheating now, thanks to the technology available and the awareness of the game among the masses,” he said.

Australia’s legendary batsman Ricky Ponting also called for an end to neutral umpires after the first Ashes Test between Australia and England.

“I would like to think the game has come far enough now for the game to not have neutral umpires,” said Ponting.

The batsman believed that wrong decisions were hurting the overall spectacle of the sport.

“People might say that with all the technology we’ve got now, it doesn’t matter that much. But it’s not a good spectacle when pretty obviously wrong decisions are made,” he concluded.