I will be disappointed if front-foot no-ball duty goes to the third umpire, says Daryl Harper

In the 2016 series between England and Pakistan in 2016, ICC employed the system of giving the third umpire duty of calling no-balls. After an insane amount of umpiring mistakes in the recent times, the ICC is contemplating to allow the TV umpire to call no-ball if a bowler oversteps. 

The ICC will identify a number of the limited-overs series over the next six months to experiment the same. However, the move didn’t go down well with former Elite Panel umpire Daryl Harper who commented that over-dependence on technology may eventually make on-field umpires “redundant.”

“If the ICC goes on to implement this, I am wondering if the on-field umpires are going to be required to do anything at all. They will still need someone to hold the bowler’s hat and his jumper though,” Harper told The Telegraph on Wednesday.

“Personally, I will be disappointed if that duty (of calling a front-foot no-ball) goes to the third umpire. They have experimented with it before, but as I said, I will be disappointed if the on-field umpires lose that aspect of their duty. They are in a very difficult situation.

“But on most occasions, I feel the on-field umpires get these calls right. However, if the ICC decides to go down the technology line, they are eventually going to make umpires redundant on the field,” the 67-year-old remarked.

Apart from cricket, other games like football and tennis have used technology to a great extent to reduce the errors committed inadvertently by the referee and the chair umpire. As a matter of fact, in the last year’s FIFA World Cup in Russia, the VAR was used extensively while Premier League will also see the system used from this season. For the longest time, Grand Slams have the Hawk-Eye (line-calling system) system in place, and former India batsman Arun Lal believes that cricket should welcome the new changes.

“It’s worth a try. Technology can help in the betterment of the game. It all depends on effective implementation. Yes, one might have a doubt over the matter, but the objective is to minimise the errors as much as possible. Besides, it’s not sacrosanct that on-field umpires have to be doing each and everything,” Lal told the Telegraph.