Ian Gould: 'Modern umpires have thrown away their egos because they understand DRS'
The former international umpire looks back at his career: the Ajmal lbw decision in the 2011 World Cup, two ball-tampering scandals, watching Steyn v Tendulkar, and more
I love umpiring. I really enjoy it and I owe it to the ECB because I've had 13-14 years swanning around the world and they've been looking after me. So I felt I deserved to come back and show my mettle that I want to carry on. Because whatever people talk about the Hundred, over the years I've been in the game, I've seen the 60-over game, the 50-over game, the 40-over game, and I remember doing the first T20 game at Bristol, and everyone said, "Well, this is just pub cricket." Now we look back on that. It's moved on very, very quickly.
Oh yeah, without a doubt. I finished [as an international umpire] on July 6 and there was a big come-down. But then I went back to county cricket in the first week of August and I thought, hang on, I really do love this job and I really love the people involved in it. And it got me going again, so I'm not going to be sitting on me backside. I'm preparing for some cricket in late July. Whether that happens or not is two different matters.
We've been warned it could happen. I think they'll be looking at younger people than me. But I'd love to do that again. It was a proper stage and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
"Umpires are not going to catch players [tampering with the ball]. Unless you do it right in front of my face, I'm not going to catch you. But cameramen will catch you"
I have started to believe, probably in my last two years, that it might go down that road. Though I think the players would like it to stay neutral - that when everyone can travel again, we go back to where it was.
The other side of it, not even in lockdown, was, we always thought it was a little unfair there was three Aussies and four English on the panel. It left five [who could officiate] when an Ashes series came, which is a massive series. I think three or four of those have done five or six [Ashes] series. Marais Erasmus, Aleem [Dar], Kumar [Dharmasena]. At the end of it, there's just five of them. That makes it very, very difficult.
I think it is. It was a very difficult time for me, and I pray that I don't see [it happen to] anybody, but I do believe there's been one or two that have not been their normal self. And there's always this fear of [showing] weakness - "You shouldn't be talking about this."
Six weeks, eight weeks, maybe longer. Once I got on the field, I was integrated with some great players and really fantastic people. But it's when you went back to your hotel room and you just thought, "Well, what am I doing?" Or a car comes to pick you up to take you to the airport. "Why am I doing this?'"
"I think the best umpires should umpire the biggest games, because DRS now is not letting you go. If you're making a mistake, you're making a mistake"
I was speaking to Richard Kettleborough about it. Richard's very quiet about things, but when we started talking, you could hear that little bit of joy in his voice. You could almost hear his mind ticking. "Well, how great would that be?" Immense amount of pressure, but he can turn around and say, "Look, I umpired a Test against Australia at Lord's" - or Birmingham, or wherever.
I don't see any harm in it. I don't think it's going to make any difference. I think people now go along to watch Test cricket and they are waiting for a review to come - it's a highlight of the day. People are putting pints down. I went last year to watch a game and there was a review. I even put my own pint down and watched the big screen. It's now part of the game.
I got it wrong. I said it was out. It was missing by a foot. It was one of those things.
I know one or two would read it, but I certainly didn't. The daftest thing I ever did was write a book, because I didn't like talking about cricket! There's enough people around who text you or say, "You'd better go and have a check on Cricinfo." But I've never minded journalists. All I've ever said is, say the truth and make it not personal.
Oh yeah, I kicked the stumps over in a West Indies-Zimbabwe game. Both teams had walked off the field. Straight ball by Dwayne Bravo, hit [Chris] Mpofu on the foot, he's turned round, limped off. Everyone's gone back. I'm standing there with my partner. There's a review just because they had one left. We had to bring them all back.
Don't go down that road. I get teased about that. People send me pictures of my reaction after I was told in my ear by Billy Bowden that it was missing leg stump. It makes me laugh. It didn't make me laugh at the time, I can assure you. But I'd give it out again with my back to the wall. It was dead. I don't know what happened.
It's intimidating. Not the players. The players are outstanding people. I've done seven, eight India-Pakistan games and the guys are real good people. They get on with each other. If you allow a crowd to get to you, all that noise and Mexican waves, or whatever, can distract you. Then you start missing bits and pieces and it's a difficult place to be. But, you know, a couple of lads, last year or two years ago, did Bangladesh-Sri Lanka and there wasn't one seamer picked in both sides. That would have been pretty difficult.
Yeah, you just went to the nets. I think some of the younger generation are missing out on that. They don't want to go to nets. One good thing about the four English guys is, they go as routine. We've always done that and it's been brilliant. Suddenly there's a guy making his debut. If you don't go to the nets, you're never going to have seen him, so you're now guessing. I just think it's a big part of being professional. It's something we've learned from David Constant, David Shepherd, Peter Willey. They set such a high standard. We didn't want to fall away.
" I'm looking at myself: 'What you thinking here, Ian, you've got six weeks in the Caribbean, in February, when it's freezing in London.' I didn't want to do it"Gould on struggling with mental-health issues
Left-arm over, pitching outside leg stump. Those are the ones you've got to try and get right. You had people like Mitchell Starc - if it was his day, it started off stump and swung - whoa, you knew you were in business. But then when he didn't quite get his action right, you weren't sure whether it pitched on or not. Same with Mitchell Johnson.
Yeah, your mindset changed completely. And you go the other way also, thinking, don't forget [the stumps] are only nine inches wide and you've got umpire's call on leg stump. There's probably times you'd give that out in the old days, but you say "not out" now. Come on, Hawk-Eye, prove me right. The standard rate of umpiring under DRS is in the 90s. That is phenomenal. If you went to a racetrack and got 90% of winners, you'd be doing handstands.
If I walk into a pub, someone says hello to me, I say hello back. Don't turn your back on them. I think that's crept into the game where maybe one or two umpires are a little bit unsure of a player. The English guys, we go to the nets, we talk, we practise. I was obviously louder and more boisterous than the other three, but people knew who I was, they knew they could go and have a laugh and it would get to a certain level. But they knew when it went past that level, I would come down on them like a ton of bricks. Some very "nice" things were said about me afterwards and that shocked me a little bit, because all I was doing was my job.
He's a funny man. Yeah, he batted like me a couple of times. I had to tell him off for slogging it. He's a charmer. He's one of those guys who's got, a bit like Sachin Tendulkar, the whole of India on his back, but you wouldn't know. You could walk into a restaurant and sit and chat with him for hours. He's a very worldly boy. When you look at Virat, you're thinking male model, pin-up boy, but he knows about the game inside out, the past, history. Lovely guy.
I can see why. But he's learned to be respectful. He could have continued his career like that and people could be talking totally the opposite about Virat. He's a nice man and the India boys are very, very good people, very respectful.
Laddish. Jack the lads they were. Now they are a completely different team. It's probably the greatest thing that happened to them. You know, they were going through these pay talks. That would have been grinding people down. But there was only a few of them that were getting a bit hostile and in your face. I have spoken to some of the players and they probably didn't see it, like me with my mental illness. But if there's a few of you doing the same things, part of you thinks, "Well, that's all right." It just got out of hand.
No, not even in my social life. Not even someone stealing food from the tuck shop. I'd love to meet Cameron [Bancroft] again. Justin Langer is good friend of mine. He's a great bloke, and he says, you've just got to meet this kid. I met him for about five minutes [at Newlands]. It was horrible for him. But I'd just like to sit opposite him and have a beer and talk it through. Because he's got a great story. But I think he won't be saying it until his career's finished.
St Lucia. It was crazy. We tried asking the question. The thing was, Javagal Srinath, a brilliant man and very good referee, spoke to both teams before, concerning what happened in South Africa. Umpires are not going to catch players. Unless you do it right in front of my face, I'm not going to catch you. I've said this a million times and people look at me stupidly. But cameramen will catch you, so if you think you're not going to get caught, I can guarantee you are going to get caught, because one camera will be designated to watch where that ball's going all the time. I didn't get why Sri Lanka were so hostile.
"Umpiring is now a young man's sport. The players are expecting a lot more of you, to be a lot fitter"
They disrupted two and a half hours of international cricket. If everybody looked back on that, then I think there would be different decisions made. But that's life. Those were the decisions made, those sanctions [a one-match ban for Chandimal] were in place at the time. I still can't get my head around why they were so hostile. The manager and the coach were as hostile as I can remember. Dinesh Chandimal I knew reasonably well, but they started to say he doesn't speak good English. Well, we did well not to giggle because we'd just listened to a post-match interview that he'd done in broad, fantastic English. I just think that if we went back on that, a lot of things would have been done differently.
I'd be lying to say that I knew that. I had no idea. I know about the law, but the problem is that you're looking at getting into position for prospective run-outs. Rod Tucker was third umpire and I don't think he would have had enough time to be thinking that way. Thank god I wasn't there. I was sitting on Brighton beach watching it. It all blew up later in the evening. Just some clever clogs went through a law book and it all came out.
I miss the buzz. God, I miss the buzz. It was great fun. I just met some fantastic people, and I was so, so damn lucky to meet these people, and they were so kind, I'm just very grateful.
Jacques Kallis. I loved watching Jacques. He was a very, very fine player. Sachin. And probably Virat. I was unlucky in some respects. I didn't see the best of Ricky Ponting. He was an outstanding character, outstanding captain, such a proud Australian. But his career was just starting to wane as I came on the scene. But he was incredibly helpful, so I'm disappointed I have to leave him out. Jacques Kallis, I could sit and watch all day, Virat, the same. And Sachin, if you want someone to bat for your life, he was the man.
Mitchell Starc on his day. Mitchell Johnson on his day. He bowled some very, very quick balls. And probably the one who gave me the biggest heart attack throughout my years - Saeed Ajmal. Lovely man, but he bowled all sorts of balls. On wickets that spun - I think Saeed would tell you he wasn't the biggest spinner of a ball, but when you could get it going both ways, that's tough. So Saeed, yeah, he was a very fine bowler, very clever bowler.
Steyn versus Tendulkar, Cape Town. That was fierce but fair. That was as good as it got. I was stood there with a brilliant umpire, Simon Taufel, and the two of us came off and said, "Wow, we'd pay for that." Dale bowled very quickly and Sachin just had the railway sleeper in his hand and kept patting it back at him. Fantastic.
The job's changed completely. I was talking to someone yesterday, about an old photo of Frank Chester - he had a trilby on, coat down to his ankles, and a pair of brogues. All he needed to do was take off his umpire's coat, put on a blazer and go straight to the pub. He didn't need to change.
Alan Gardner is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo. @alanroderick