ICC to stick to neutral umpires

MELBOURNE: Despite several blunders by neutral umpires in recent games, the International Cricket Council will not go back to fielding home umpires during Test matches.
    
Sunil Gavaskar, Chairman of the ICC Cricket Committee, said the neutral umpire system eliminates the suspicion of bias.
   
"If a third country umpire makes a (questionable) decision, it won't be as acrimonious as if a home umpire made that decision," Gavaskar said.
   
"That (neutral umpires) will be there for a while. I know there is some talk about having only the best umpires come in, but rather than have any controversy regarding decisions, I think it is probably a lot better (to have the system)," he was quoted as saying by the 'Herald Sun' newspaper.
   
The ongoing India-Australia Test in Sydney has seen several obvious errors and led to demands of having the best on-field umpires regardless of their nationality.
   
Gavaskar also said the proposed use of further technology to help umpires was on the ICC agenda but only foolproof technological assitance would be sought.
   
"There have been different technologies coming through but the stance of the ICC and the Cricket Committee has been fairly consistent in as much that wherever the decision is foolproof, that you can go ahead and use it.

"But where there is an element of doubt, where it's not 100 per cent, then the words the ICC use is to 'hasten slowly'. You would rather have human error than technological error," he said.