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TV umpiring slip-ups come under the scanner at Women’s World Cup
Umpiring standards have come under scrutiny at the Women’s World Cup 2025 , which has witnessed numerous contentious calls in its first two-and-a-half weeks. The most conspicuous of these mistakes have appeared around the use of the decision review system (DRS), which is only sporadically used in the women’s game. As such, the umpires’ experience with DRS protocols has come under the spotlight.
One of the most notable mis-steps occurred in the match between England and Bangladesh, when Heather Knight got three reprieves, one of which was a low catch by Shorna Akter. On 13 at the time, with England chasing 179, Knight chipped legspinner Fahima Khatum to Shorna at cover.
Knight was happy to walk off, but TV umpire Gayathri Venugopalan ruled otherwise based on “inconclusive” evidence. Earlier, there was also a caught-behind decision that was given out on the field, but overturned by the third umpire, who felt the ball hit Knight’s pad through to the wicketkeeper.
“I did the presentation that evening and I put it to Heather Knight, and she did not sit on the fence at all, “Nasser Hussain, who is working as a broadcaster at the tournament, said on *JioStar pressroom. “She said, ‘well, I thought it was out, I was walking off’. There were other lbw reviews as well and Heather said, ‘I’ve never been out so many times in a cricket match.’ She then got 60 or 70 not out [79 not out] to win the game, and that really hurts you.”
Another incident was Muneeba Ali’s run out during the match between India and Pakistan in Colombo. Muneeba, the Pakistan opener, was originally given not-out on the big screen by the TV umpire, before that decision was changed to “out”.
On that occasion, TV umpire Kerrin Klaaste had not viewed all the available footage before first ruling it not-out lbw, and changed that decision after viewing further footage that showed there had been a run-out decision to make as well. The correct decision was eventually arrived at, but the process caused significant confusion, leading Muneeba and captain Fatima Sana to seek further clarification from the fourth umpire on the edge of the boundary.
Then, during their game against South Africa, India reviewed a not-out lbw call against Sune Luus. The third umpire, Candace la Borde, adjudicated that a murmur on Ultra Edge was enough to indicate an under-edge onto the pad even though a side-on replay showed reasonable distance between the ball and bat at the time of the murmur. Luus remained not out.
During the India-Australia game, the catch taken by Sneh Rana at point to dismiss Alyssa Healy was checked by third umpire Jacqueline Williams, who said, “I can see the ball touching the ground,” before she changed her line and ruled the catch clean.
“If you look at these replays enough, if you keep zooming in – I can’t remember where I was, I might have been watching on the telly actually – there was another one of those the fingers and the hands get under the ball,” Hussain said about the Healy dismissal. “The third umpire didn’t ask for 15 different replays or whatever. She just looked at it, sort of, a couple of times, gut feel, fingers were under the ball, that’s out. Which I always worry about when I am watching at home or in broadcast. If you keep looking, you will find things; you have to be meticulous.”
Of the ten umpires who have performed TV duties through the course of this World Cup, only three have officiated as TV umpire in more than 20 matches with DRS available: Sue Redfern (42), Eloise Sheridan (25), and Kim Cotton (24).
There are three umpires who had never previously been a TV umpire in an ODI that used DRS – la Borde, N Janani and Sarah Dambanenava. La Borde, in fact, had never been a third umpire in any international using DRS, while Janani and Dambanenava have had DRS experience in a limited number of T20Is. More significantly, five of the ten TV umpires had performed the role in fewer than five internationals with DRS available. In addition to the three mentioned, Venugopalan and Klaaste are also inexperienced with DRS.
There has also been a greater percentage of on-field decisions overturned via the use of reviews than is often seen at major global competitions. In this World Cup, there have been 25 successful overturns of on-field decisions in 36 innings – a rate of 0.67 successful overturns per innings. In the last World Cup to be played in Asia – the men’s ODI World Cup in 2023 – the rate of successful overturns per innings was 0.46.
The ICC declined to comment on the umpires’ relative inexperience with DRS, and did not reveal whether teams themselves had raised queries on umpiring missteps. The ICC’s umpire manager, Sean Easey, has been at some venues during this World Cup.
(Cricinfo)
The United States military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces conducted “self-defence” strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island and “defeated multiple” Iranian missiles and drones as civilian vessels and regional allies Kuwait and Bahrain came under attack.
Kuwait’s military said air defence systems intercepted incoming drones and missiles, while Bahrain’s Interior Ministry said warning sirens were activated. Earlier, Iranian media reported that explosions were heard in the vicinity of Qeshm Island.
[Aljazeera]
In January 2024, the publication Axios reported that the United States president at the time, Joe Biden, was “running out of patience” with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza had been raging for months by that point, and Biden was facing public backlash over US support for the conflict.
The assault would continue for the rest of Biden’s term and bleed into the first 10 months of Donald Trump’s second presidency.
Since then, media outlets have continued to publish anonymous accounts of rifts and “frustrating” calls between Trump and the Israeli prime minister. But US support for its Middle East ally has never wavered.
Another anonymously sourced report about a furious, expletive-laden call between US and Israeli leaders came out this week, and it spread rapidly across international media.
Axios reported on Monday that Trump called Netanyahu “f***ing crazy” and berated him over Israel’s escalation in Lebanon.
Around the same time, an Israeli attack killed six people, including two children, in the southern Lebanese town of al-Marwaniyah.
Experts say that despite leaks of feuds and harsh words between US leaders and Netanyahu, policies are ultimately what matters, and they have changed very little.
Ryan Costello, the policy director at the National Iranian American Council Action (NIAC), said political observers have grown to “mock” reports of closed-door anger from US presidents against Netanyahu.
“What’s really important is what actually happens in practice,” Costello told Al Jazeera.
Though there are reports of Trump giving Netanyahu a dressing-down, Isabelle Hayslip, an advocacy manager at the US-based rights group DAWN, said that US policy remains aligned with Israeli interests.
“Single-source reporting of Trump as a strongman who picks up the phone and yells at Netanyahu for undermining US policy is contradicted by the actual policy outcomes where Netanyahu gets exactly what he wants,” Hayslip told Al Jazeera.
“Trump has no final say over Israeli actions. Like his predecessors, the president has proved completely unable to prioritise American interests, instead catering to Israel’s expansionist whims.”
The latest report comes as Trump faces increasing pressure from his Democratic rivals and segments of his base over his handling of the war on Iran, which he launched jointly with Netanyahu on February 28.
The conflict, which saw Iran close the Strait of Hormuz, has sent gasoline prices soaring in the US and fuelled inflation.
Critics have accused Trump of allowing Israel to drag the US into a war that does not advance Washington’s priorities.
With negotiations to end the war stagnating, Israel’s escalation in Lebanon and its threat to bomb Beirut risks derailing the fragile truce that came into effect in April.
Iranian officials have suggested that they cut off contact with the US over the Israeli attacks in Lebanon.
Before the Axios report, Trump announced he had spoken to Netanyahu and an unidentified Hezbollah representative, and both sides agreed that “all shooting will stop”.
But Netanyahu was quick to assert that the Israeli military “will continue to operate as planned in southern Lebanon”, where it is deepening its invasion and turning entire towns into rubble.
Advocates say Israeli atrocities in Lebanon and across the region could not have happened without US backing.
Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza in October 2023, the US has provided Israel with nearly $25bn in military aid, helped fend off retaliatory Iranian attacks against the country and vetoed several ceasefire resolutions at the United Nations Security Council.
Nonetheless, anonymous accounts that the US president is angry at Netanyahu have become a regular feature in the media.
Such reports are attributed to US officials, but it is unclear how leaks with a similar message on the same topic have continued across two administrations from different political parties.
Publicly, aides of both Biden and Trump have largely refrained from criticising Israel.
Trump has regularly praised the Israeli prime minister, arguing on more than one occasion that Israel would have ceased to exist without Netanyahu’s leadership.
In December, the US president also called the Israeli prime minister a “hero” during a meeting in Florida.
“We’re with you, and we’ll continue to be with you,” Trump told Netanyahu.
Two weeks earlier, Axios reported that the White House had “scolded” Netanyahu over Israel’s ceasefire violations in Gaza.
“The White House message to Netanyahu was: ‘If you want to ruin your reputation and show that you don’t abide by agreements, be our guest, but we won’t allow you to ruin President Trump’s reputation after he brokered the deal in Gaza,” the publication quoted a US official as saying.
Few people know the exact content of high-level calls at the White House. Sometimes, top officials, including members of the National Security Council, sit in on conversations between the president and world leaders after briefings.
Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a research nonprofit, said the leak about the tense call between Trump and Netanyahu may be aimed at making Trump look tough on Israel to quell outrage over the war.
“It could be sort of a way of moderating the anger or the blame at the US for continuing this unpopular, illegal, unnecessary war,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera.
She added that the message it sends is, “Look, we’re very angry at Israel. We yell at them. We call them names.”
But Mortazavi stressed that policy is more important than rhetoric: “Does that change the facts on the ground?”
For his part, Costello argued that the leak was likely directed at Iran.
“I see this one primarily as a signal to the Iranians that Trump is serious, and he wants to insulate what’s happening in Lebanon and Israel’s attacks from the Iran negotiations,” Costello said.
“It remains to be seen the extent to which that excoriation has actually led to a change in Israel’s policies, and I think there is a strong incentive for continued defiance from Netanyahu.”
Axios, meanwhile, has defended its coverage.
“We stand by our reporting, which by the way noted ‘Trump and Netanyahu have had several tense calls in the past but have still coordinated closely on Iran and other issues,’” Jake Wilkins, a spokesperson for the publication, told Al Jazeera in an email.
Mortazavi warned that all sides of the war on Iran are trying to influence public perceptions of the conflict.
She pointed to recent reports that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had resigned, a rumour that was promptly denied by his office.
“This is a very hybrid war. It’s a war on the battlefield. It’s an intelligence war. It’s a war of narratives,” Mortazavi told Al Jazeera. “And then there’s also an information war, which includes disinformation, half-truths and strategic leaks.”
[Aljazeera]
Where once ODI bilaterals could have been fairly mocked for their lack of relevance, they are played less and less, and this series has a bit of heat to it. Qualification for the 2027 ODI World Cup is on the line, and both these sides know what it’s like to be left out of a major international tournament (both were missing from the last Champions Trophy, and West Indies had also not played the 2023 World Cup).
On March 31, 2027, the eight highest-ranking teams – aside from hosts South Africa and Zimbabwe – will qualify automatically for the World Cup, and teams slightly lower will have to fight their way in through a qualifier. Currently Sri Lanka are ranked sixth in ODIs, while West Indies are ninth. Both teams could do with a rankings boost.
Sri Lanka are in slightly better shape coming into this series. They have, at the very least, played ODIs this year, losing 2-1 at home to England. West Indies have lost four of their last five ODIs, and have not played the format for six months. Both teams have more or less their regular ODI troops to pick from, however. Sri Lanka’s seam stocks are in especially good health at present.
Sri Lanka’s ODI captaincy has been one of cricket’s most-puzzling roulette wheels over the past ten years. Kusal Mendis had had the job until 2024, when he was ousted with no reason provided. He has again been put in charge, perhaps with a view to him leading Sri Lanka into that 2027 World Cup campaign. There’s been little to recommend him for the role than his own buoyant batting form, however. How will he fare this time in what has turned out to be one of cricket’s most tumultuous positions?
With an average of 50.52 and 19 hundreds in this format, West Indies captain Shai Hope is the only batter in the series who can be called a reliable run machine. Hope hasn’t played competitive cricket since the T20 World Cup, but does have a decent record against Sri Lanka, against whom he has hit two ODI hundreds and four fifties. Like his opposite wicketkeeper-batter-captain Mendis, Hope will be a key figure as West Indies begin their push towards the 2027 World Cup in earnest.
West Indies will need to find a spot for Shimron Hetmyer, who is back in the ODI format. Ackeem Auguste may make way at the top of the order to allow Hetmyer back in. Gudakesh Motie will also likely lead the spin attack.
West Indies (possible): John Campbell, Shai Hope (capt.)(wk) , Keacy Carty, Shimron Hetmyer, Sherfane Rutherford, Roston Chase, Justin Greaves, Matthew Forde, Shamar Springer, Gudakesh Motie, Jayden Seales
Sri Lanka have serious decisions to make on the bowling front. In Dushmantha Chameera, Dilshan Madushanka, and Eshan Malinga, they have three bowlers capable of breaching 140kph.
Sri Lanka (possible): Kamil Mishara, Pathum Nissanka, Kusal Mendis (capt, wk), Pavan Rathnayake, Charith Asalanka, Janith Liyanage, Kamindu Mendis, Wanindu Hasaranga, Eshan Malinga, Dushmantha Chameera, Dilshan Madushanka
[Cricinfo]
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