How come nearly every player seems to be an expert on giving an lbw decision, but not the umpires?

Players think they know best and yet there is only one person who has the best view of where the ball pitched, what the ball hit first, was the point of impact in line wicket to wicket, was the batter attempting to play the ball and would the ball have gone on to hit the wicket - not to mention was it a fair ball in the first place.

Players appeal from all sorts of positions, including standing on the boundary which adds to the pressure on the umpire. Then, comments fly around about the umpire not understanding the lbw law. A batter never thinks he is out and a bowler always thinks he has a wicket. The bowler is often running off the pitch so not in line wicket to wicket, the wicketkeeper has a restricted view as he does not stand directly behind the stumps and will lose sight of where the ball pitched or what it hit first and then there is the batter, who goes off shaking his head, not realising he has shuffled across his stumps and meets all the criteria to be given out. Then, there is the one where the ball hits the batters’ pads first before hitting the bat as so many players try to hide the bat behind their pad and say immediately “I hit that”. That sets off disagreements straight away.

Having watched a few games this season, it is not only players having a go at the umpires, quite a few spectators seem to be very opinionated and criticise an umpire, especially if he has given out a so-called star player. Clubs are responsible for their spectators and how nice it was recently to see a member of the opposition supporters step in and tell a fellow spectator to stop the comments and behave. It is no wonder leagues are struggling for umpires. When asking ex-players to have a go, the standard reply is “no way, I could not stand the hassle”. Most games are played within the spirit of the game but there are some which are not. But, thanks to the new ECB code of conduct, umpires and league disciplinary officers have more powers to deal with player and spectator behaviour. Umpires are not perfect and do make errors but you only need to watch the Test umpires to see how many mistakes are corrected by DRS and they are mainly lbw decisions.