Neutral Umpires

The fiasco on Saturday evening has renewed calls for the best umpires to stand in test matches rather than neutral umpires. The risk I see in this is that it may end up that the same two umpires are chosen for every match or that one nation ends up supplying all the umpires. It isn't that easy to decide who is the best umpire - even Simon Taufel made mistakes during the World Cup - but his fans overlook this. In fact, I think unless one analyses an umpire's performance scientifically (like the ICC actually do), the naked eye won't necessarily reveal the best umpire.

That's one argument. The more pertinent argument here is that on Saturday we had Steve Bucknor (veteran of 5 world cups), and Aleem Dar (widely seen as the 2nd best umpire on the circuit). Simon Taufel is seen as the best (remember even he has made errors of judgement on umpiring decisions in this WC). Thus do we deem that he is chosen to umpire every match? or is it just every important match? in which case, take a scenario where India are playing Pakistan in a test series - it's 1-1 - do you fly taufel in to umpire the deciding rubber?

Umpiring isn't a god given talent like batting, bowling or fielding. Mere mortals can dream of becoming good umpires. I say stick to neutral, but just give them all it takes to be the best - not just 1 super-umpire, but a team of super-umpires.