Erratic umpiring has been a bane of Indian cricket and as it gets highlighted through the IPl, former international umpire K Hariharan says the standard can improve by having mentors guide the "clueless" officials.
"like the selectors are constantly watching the players from the sidelines, you have to have mentors for umpires who can monitor their performance during the game and point out their positives and negatives right after the game," Hariharan told PTI in an interview.
"As of now, there is nobody to guide Indian umpires on the domestic circuit. We all know some umpiring howlers have been committed in the IPl and that can happen, human errors happen all the time. But there should be a group of mentors to tell them after the game where they went wrong, where they went right, were they standing in the right position, things like that," said the now-retired umpire who officiated in two Tests and 34 ODIs.
Hariharan, in fact, is part of the BCCI review committee which is supposed to periodically propose changes for improving the umpiring standards in domestic cricket. The panel comprises former umpires Vijay Chopra, I Shivram, V K Ramaswamy besides Hariharan himself. "We have already submitted our report in which we have proposed the appointment of mentors for the top 25 umpires of the country. The board will decide the future course of action," said the 61-year-old.