‘Law 43 most important: Use common sense’

First of all, it was so close, I wasn’t certain. Had I made a decision on my own there, I would have been guessing. But it was damn strange, standing in the middle of Kingsmead in Durban, making the square sign for the TV replay. I just felt at that particular moment, as I was waiting for the verdict, ‘Was this the cricket that I had been born into?’ Didn’t make a lot of sense then.

• Wasn’t it embarrassing, a bit of an ego blow?

Yes, it was. After the game, I spoke to the guy that introduced the system, Dr Ali Bacher (then head of the United Cricket Board of South Africa). I asked him, ‘Tell me, Ali, how far down the road are we going with this system?’ He said to me, ‘Cyril, I give you my word of honour that it won’t get further than line decisions.’ Today, it’s gone to carry of catches, it’s gone to boundaries. It will go to lbws now, very soon.

• Are you happy with that?

As an individual, no. Players should be allowed to make mistakes, why not umpires? The players that make the fewer mistakes are the better players in the world, and the umpires that make the fewer mistakes are the better umpires. Everybody makes mistakes, it’s the human nature. As a man from the old school, if I had my way in the beginning, there would have been no technology because we are taking a bit of the mystique from the game.

• Taking this further, to the recent controversy after the Oval Test when umpires Darrell Hair and Billy Doctrove awarded the game to England after Pakistan failed to take the field, was that decision right?

No. Nobody is bigger than the game, the game has to go on. If that incident had been handled a little more effectively, it would never have happened. I think it was a sad day for cricket that they had to call off that Test due to Darrell Hair not using Law 43. There are 42 laws in cricket, Law 43 is the most crucial, the law of common sense. Hair never used his common sense. There might have been tampering with the ball, I don’t know. But who did you actually see do it? TV didn’t pick up anything. The whole thing was poorly, poorly handled.

• And Hair’s email that followed, asking for 500,000 dollars to quit?

The moment he asked for 500,000 US, my immediate feeling was, ‘Is this guy in for the money or is he in for the game?’ We all want money, we all work for a living. But when you say, ‘I want 500,000 US, I will get out of the game’, it threw a different light on the situation. I didn’t agree with that.

• There’s this other issue that’s had umpires on the backfoot for years, that of chucking. Let’s put it this way, will you call Muttiah Muralitharan?

Let me put it this way. If I went to Colombo and called Murali (for bending the arm) there, do you think I would get out of Sri Lanka safely? I think you will find that umpires are a bit reluctant to call players for bowling action. Maybe, you should be using all this technology to solve those kind of problems. I am not entirely in favour of this correctional thing, either. You go to England or Australia where they are doing these biomechanic tests, but does the guy actually go there and bowl with his arm bent, or is he straightening up a little bit just to get cleared? You should film these guys when they are not aware of it, in a match situation. Especially when they are battling, when they are not getting wickets, because that’s when if they do chuck, they are inclined to chuck more to get a breakthrough.

• Finally, your second ‘India moment’ in Port Elizabeth in 1992, when Kapil Dev ran out Peter Kirsten in Port Elizabeth from the bowling end and skipper Kepler Wessels later whacked the Indian on the shin with his bat.

I didn’t see the Kepler incident. I was actually moving towards square leg when Kepler turned around for the second run. I saw Kapil on the floor, holding his shin and asked him, ‘What happened?’ He replied with some choice words.

• But how often have you seen a guy being run out at the non-striker’s end by the bowler before delivering the ball in a Test match?

After the Kapil Dev-Peter Kirsten incident, the UCB had 12 reported cases of schoolboys doing it. They saw Kapil do it, they followed it. As much as I respect Kapil Dev, I didn’t agree with what he did. Before I gave the ruling, I went to Mohammad Azharuddin (captain) and I said, ‘Mohammad, do you want me to make that decision?’ And he said, ‘Yes’. I had asked Kapil first, and he had said yes, too. But Kapil also used some other words to go with it. Oh, yes, I will never forget that.