The president of the West Indies Cricket Board has attacked the ICC's decision to remove Steve Bucknor from umpiring in the Perth Test as being an "extreme" reaction.
In a letter to ICC president Ray Mali, Julian Hunte compared the situation to the way the ICC handled a similar complaint lodged by the WICB during West Indies' tour to Australia in 2005. "The ICC's reaction by Dave Richardson [the ICC's cricket manager] was to acknowledge that errors were made but to insist that 'the overall standard of umpiring has improved in recent years, particularly with the advent of the elite panel'.
"It would be interesting to know what made this situation any different." The match referee during that series was Mike Procter, who is again at the center of the storm following the Sydney Test. Sydney, Day 5, 2nd Test Match, Australia Vs India Ponting, fielding at silly point, dived to hold a ball that ballooned off Mahendra Singh Dhoni's pads; he got to his feet and vociferously claimed the catch, though replays at the time indicated he had grounded the ball. That could have been justified as happening in the heat of the moment - but later in the day, after play, and with the benefit of video replays to draw from, Ponting not only maintained that he had caught it clean, but suggested that an Indian journalist who had questioned the catch "shouldn't be standing there". "There's no way I grounded that ball," Ponting told a press conference. "If you're actually qu
