| Retiring umpire questions |
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| Monday, 06 April 2009 02:54 | |||
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BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, CMC – Steve Bucknor has lived his life whole life believing in the concept of “fair play”, but he is walking away from the game that he loves questioning if others have always applied it in their response to situations involving him. The 63-year-old international umpire disclosed that he plans to write an autobiography, where he would let his feelings be known about his journey from the humble, if not quite mean streets of Montego Bay on the north coast of his native Jamaica to becoming the most respected and capped international umpire. He has been described as “a gentle giant”, but Bucknor plans to give the World an insight of just how tough he can be, and how tough his ride to the top has been, and will send down a few fiery deliveries like the ones he enjoyed watching Sir Vivian Richards dispatch with aplomb. “I am putting bits and pieces together,” he said. “I did not want to do it while I was still umpiring because I have a few shots to fire. I can’t call many names, but once I fire these shots, then people will know exactly what I am talking about.” Bucknor was involved in a highly contentious series in January last year, when he was removed by the International Cricket Council from officiating in the third Test between Australia and India in Perth after several contentious decisions contributed to India’s defeat in the second Test in Sydney. “I do not think the situation was handled well at all,” he said. “There is a protocol and when someone says his umpires will remain no matter what, and the following day that is changed, you have to ask, ‘who makes the decisions, or why the decisions were made’? Or, what influenced the changing of decision’?” Bucknor also complained that some captains can be mischievous in the way they treat umpires. He recalled on one occasion in a Test he was standing at square leg, and a batsman ran down the middle of the pitch in trying to complete a run. “The captain comes running over to me to say, ‘Hey, umpire Bucknor, did you not see the man run down the middle of the pitch’? “Now I am at square leg and this is not my responsibility. You are taking a shot at me. Why?” Bucknor noted his upbringing – being raised by a single mother, some days going hungry, and resisting the temptation to break the law – had helped him to cope in such situations and prevented him from losing his dignity with some ill-advised action or comment. “I am prepared to stand up to anybody,” he said. “Fear was never anything when I was growing up. I didn’t think about fear. It was never part of me. I was never a bad man, and I never got arrested for anything, but I understood what fair play was. . . “I know exactly how to behave. My bones have never been broken by talking, so if someone believes that they can be unfair to me by talking and get away it, they can go right ahead. “Maybe, I did not have the power to punish that player, but he would get punished otherwise.” Bucknor revealed that sometime his decision to remain true to his beliefs have hurt him professionally, as cricket authorities have ignored many of his suggestions, and some captains have marked unjustly given him low marks. “Sometimes you do a good game,” he said. “No mistakes whatsoever. Everything is in order, and at the end of the day, you get a mark of average out of poor, average, and good, you get average. “But the [ultimate] Judge is always ready to make the pronouncement. If I was good, then my rewards are going to be good later on – I hope.” Bucknor has also lived through the experience of having his life threatened and the scourge of racism which still rears its ugly head as it did a few years ago in South Africa. “My reception in South Africa has always generally been good, but there are times when there are certain groups of people who are not happy seeing this [black] skin in the middle of the park and us having the authority there,” he said pointing to his forearm. “In that case, there were two of us with this skin, and you cannot be the person with the authority in the middle when many years before, this skin was being oppressed. “I believe this was the reason for the death threats because the umpires are there to be the mediators and they are there to get the players to behave and stay in line. “The white extremists are not going to be happy. This death threat was told to me. I did not hear it. It was told to me that it was a white extremist who might have been drunk because of the language spoken.” Through it all, Bucknor has risen to stand in a World record 128 Tests – the most by any umpire – and 180 One-day Internationals including a World record five World Cup finals. He identified his single greatest achievement is remaining fit in body and in mind to ensure that he could afford his seven children the opportunity of a sound education.
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