The Crooked Finger - Billy Bowden settles down

Officiating with eccentricity is Billy Bowden, an aspiring Kiwi cricketer who somehow ventured into umpiring because the love of the game is sure to take you places, as it did with Bowden. As it turns out, Bowden must have found it quite hard to create a niche for himself in the umpiring world. A lesson from the umpires’ handbook reads that the umpire should go as unnoticed as possible, quietly going about your work and eyes on the ball at all times.

For a commoner like me, watching the match as a spectator on TV and I used to think to myself that umpiring as a career option is always open to me. Forgive me for being naïve but at that age and time, it was mighty hard for an impressionable person like me to understand the burdens of added concentration and attention.

Today, with the experience of passing out during lectures behind me, I understand that cultivating an added attention span is no cakewalk. Add to that, the pressure on an umpire is more than the pressure being felt by any player on the field because the guardian of a cricketer’s destiny, the umpire stands to lose out on his day job if God forbid he makes one bad decision.

Obviously, the stakes are high today with the video umpires standing on their toes in a bid to scrutinize the on-field umpires’ decisions. For an on-field umpire, it’s a double edged sword. If your decision is in sync with the video umpire’s decision, nobody cares and you get nothing except a ‘kudos’ from the commentators and yet, one crucial decision gone wrong and the on-field umpire faces the ire of fans on social media and very often the ICC.

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In such a scenario, the “crooked finger of doom” wasn’t easy to digest. Many, in fact most of the spectators brushed it aside as a ‘one-off thing’ and were sure it was the last they see it and yet, the crooked finger’s curiously bent structure ventured again and again and for a change, it was a cricket umpire who was trending on the cricket field.

Dismissals, Boundaries and sixes were a treat for the spectator because it gave them an opportunity to see the Kiwi in action. Billy Bowden now confident in his eccentricity put on an exhibition of embellished signals, among with them the most famous being the hop-on-one-leg-and-reach-for-Jesus-signal for six.

Bowden’s rise in the umpiring ranks of the ICC is synonymous with the onset of T20 cricket. The inaugural T20 World Cup held in South Africa in 2007 was for many, a one-off experiment and yet, among the many factors contributing to its success and continuation, one of the most important was Billy Bowden’s preposterous eye for showmanship. Monstrous sixes followed by an umpire dancing on the field and the spectators were treated with a visual delight which is hard to forget even today.

Bowden was himself, an aspiring cricketer in his youth. It was the onset of rheumatoid arthritis which made him give up the game as a cricketer and yet, he persevered and how! He gave up the game only to return later as an on-field umpire and built a uniquely crafted and celebrated career for himself in a field where it is preferred if one goes unnoticed!

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The “crooked finger of doom” is not the outcome of Bowden’s showmanship but his arthritis which makes it painful for him to signal a batsman out in the conventional fashion, of course Bowden capitalized on the unexpected attention he got after his crooked finger started making news and he added a wide array of personalized signals to his repertoire making him an interesting element to watch out for on the field.

Billy Bowden though, understands the nature of the game and the traditions of its different formats. He downplays his showmanship while officiating in Tests, keeps it moderate in ODI’s and supplements the party atmosphere during the T20I matches where his showmanship is on full display.

Although a favorite among the spectators, Bowden seems to be out of favor with the ICC as indicated by his frequent inclusion and simultaneous exclusion from the ICC elite panel of umpires. He was omitted in 2013 only to return a year later and was again omitted a year after that. Today Bowden is no longer a member of the panel and a few days ago, New Zealand cricket, buckling under the pressure from the ICC which raised concerns over the standard of New Zealand umpiring at the international level decided to axe Bowden from the international panel and it seems like we have seen the last of “Bozo the clown.”

Bowden will continue officiating in the New Zealand‘s domestic cricket matches but his international stint seems to have hit a permanent roadblock. Nevertheless, we remain hopeful of a miracle of sorts. Meanwhile, Bowden’s career in which he has officiated in 84 Tests, 200 ODIs and 24 T20Is is a feat that few have achieved and even fewer have made it memorable!