Tasmania University Cricket Club

Latest News (28th. August 2007)

From Poacher to Gamekeeper - a novice Umpire’s Perspective.

(Our thanks to Mike Graham-Smith for this article on the transition from playing to Umpiring.)


(picture courtesy of the Mercury)

My decision to retire as a player and stand down as President of the T.U.C.C. was not an easy one for me. I love playing cricket and I was thoroughly enjoying my role as President. Having said that my body had been telling me for some time to retire and, after 12 years on the committee and 7 years as President, it was time for some new ideas at the club. I was thrilled when Paul McNamara came forward to take on the role as President as he has a strong background in management and administration and, most importantly, is passionate about the club. I am very confident that the club will go from strength to strength under his leadership.

I had discussed the possibility of taking up umpiring with the State Director of Umpiring, Richard Widows in January this year. In that discussion I remember saying that I had been entertaining the thought of umpiring once I stopped playing cricket in ‘a couple of years’. I can honestly say that throughout my playing career I hadn’t once considered taking up umpiring after I finished playing. I could never understand why anyone would stand out in the field for so many hours and only ever get noticed when they made a bad decision! This discussion with Richard got me thinking more deeply about umpiring. I went home to discuss the matter with my wife and within a few hours I had made up my mind. I would be having a crack at umpiring next season. I have been excited about the prospect of taking up umpiring ever since. I even started doing some umpiring in the nets at training towards the end of the season. I watch cricket matches from a very different perspective now.

So I had made the big decision in my own mind but, apart from a few junior matches when I was a junior coach and some social matches, I hadn’t ever really umpired before. My foray into umpiring began at the first meeting of the Laws School at Bellerive Oval on the night of Wednesday, 27th June 2007. I walked into a room of over fifty experienced umpires and I was given a warm welcome. I believe there were half a dozen, or more, new umpires starting out but I didn’t really know who they were. I did recognise Colin McNiff, the WIN television sports reader. I had heard that he was taking up umpiring prior to the meeting. It was strange walking into a room full of people that you have dealt with so often on the field over many years. I remembered a lot of their names but I also forgot a few that I should have remembered.

As a player I was always very respectful of umpires but, in reality, as I think back on my dealings with umpires over the years I can say that I was never really very aware of them on the field which probably meant that the majority of them were doing a very good job. As a player I always found my energies and thoughts were directed elsewhere which makes sense as well. When I became captain of the second grade team in my last two seasons as a player my relationship with umpires changed dramatically as one would expect. As a captain I always felt that the umpires and I were very much working together to positively direct the path of a match but, when it came to the crunch, there was also a clear line between umpires and players. I enjoyed the last couple of seasons as a captain and that closer interaction with umpires.

There were six meetings of the Laws School over June, July and August and I attended them all although I got to one of them a bit late as I had to attend the T.U.C.C. Annual General Meeting one night and stand down as President before going on to the Laws School. After a hesitant start I started to really enjoy these meetings and the presenters, lead by Richard Widows, did a very good job in outlining the 42 laws. They often referred to Law 43 and I didn’t understand that one to start with. I thought it might have been like the 19th hole in golf – perhaps the drinks after the match? It was soon pointed out to me that Law 43 is common sense.

The umpiring fraternity is made up of many great people who just want to put something back into the game and they push each other to raise the standards of umpiring in Tasmania. However, I did find that they love nothing better than endlessly debating very strange match scenarios that would probably never occur in ten umpiring careers! Still I guess you need to tease out all possibilities in case they happen. I’m sure many umpires are frustrated lawyers though!

The Laws School made one thing very clear to me. I know very little about the laws of the game. Now I consider myself a reasonably bright bloke and I have played first grade cricket for over 20 years and been involved in the administration of the game for over a decade but I can honestly say that, as a player, I have only ever scratched the surface of the laws of the game. I’m sure most players, even up to test level, would be in the same situation. It is not until I started the laws school that I became fully aware of this fact. Sure I have a pretty good understanding of the basics of the laws of the game but the Laws School has opened my eyes to the depths of the laws of the game. The laws are beautiful. Richard keeps telling us this and I was starting to believe it. In fact, the Laws School reminds me of a good, old fashioned gospel meeting where the passionate preachers spell out the truth to the assembled throng. I was soon converted. The major difference is that the parishioners end up at the bar after the meeting!

Just to reinforce the gospel analogy the presenters started to talk about Tom Smith quite a bit and his book titled “Cricket Umpiring and Scoring’. To these umpires Tom Smith was the Messiah and his book, the bible. It wasn’t long before I found myself in a book shop ordering Tom Smith’s book. If Tom Smith was the divine one then he has many disciples and this group of umpires hold up Simon Taufel as one of the anointed. I found myself looking to him as a role model. I decided to watch him closely in the test matches between England and India to see what sets him apart. As fate would have it, he probably had his worst match ever in the second test. I hope I haven’t jinxed him. He remains, far and away, the best in the world and I will continue to watch closely to find out what makes him so good.

I had the Laws of Cricket Exam hanging over my head though so I had to study hard. I read the MCC Laws of Cricket booklet from cover to cover three times, read Tom Smith’s book and purchased Cricket Australia’s Umpiring kit which included a CD-Rom and I worked my way diligently through the CD-Rom and kept doing the 70 question test until I got 100%. It took me four times! They were the same questions each time, I might add. I kept making the same mistakes over and over again. I even experienced a feeling I hadn’t had for 15 years – the guilty feeling that I used to get when university exams were upon me and I would procrastinate when I should have been studying. It was amazing. Those feelings have a smell, taste and chemical reaction that are very distinctive and take you to a very particular place and I was getting that feeling again after all these years. I had done enough study, I thought, and how hard could the exam be after all? It’s a multiple choice exam!

I walked into the room and collected an exam and found a table to sit at. The exam had 60 multiple choice questions. The first 40 questions were worth 2 marks each and the last 20 questions were worth 1 mark each. I had a look at the first question and it was hard, very hard. I’ll come back to it, I thought. I looked at the second and it was hard, very hard. I’ll come back to it; they can’t all be that hard, I thought. They were that hard. The exam was hard, very hard. Some were relatively easy but many of them had me stumped. In many questions, three or four of the four choices seemed reasonable. I started to perspire and sigh audibly often. I needed to get 85% on the exam to be eligible to stand in 1st grade and 2nd grade matches and I wanted to reach that mark so that, at least, I could have a go at that level if I proved to be good enough this season. 90 minutes later I had finished and I was fairly confident I wouldn’t get anywhere near 85%. Oh well, I can’t do much more than that, I thought. I handed up the paper and within a few minutes it had been marked and I got, believe it or not, 85%. I still can’t believe it but I’ll take it. A few experienced umpires were very helpful and talked me through my mistakes. It all made sense (sort of) in retrospect.

The next event on the calendar is the Annual Seminar in early October. My first match as an umpire will be in late October. I am excited about umpiring and I can’t wait for the season to start. In the meantime, I’ll read the MCC Laws Book a few more times, read the bible, watch a lot of Pay TV to learn from the anointed one and talk to Richard and his disciples about what to expect when the season starts.


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