The right to appeal

Soon after his team had slumped to a fourth successive defeat, Sourav Ganguly was asked whether he would be in favour of the IPL adopting an appeal system for poor umpiring decisions. Already in trouble after the war of words with Shane Warne in Jaipur, he opted to let the question pass, saying it was for the IPL to decide. You couldn't help but think though how much such a system might have helped his Knight Riders on a Punjabi night when pretty much everything went wrong.

Kumar Sangakkara was a key player in the King's XI's renaissance, emerging at the fall of the fifth wicket to continue an innings that had been stalled by a side strain. But the fact was that Sangakkara shouldn't have been there in the first place, with Ashok Dinda, one of the most impressive Indian new-ball bowlers on view in the competition, desperately unlucky not to get the decision after he had gloved one behind.

The umpire was I Shivram, and his attitude was one of studied nonchalance. Had Kolkata been allowed an appeal, even the most cursory replay would have told you why poor Dinda was screaming his lungs out. Instead, Sangakkara spent half an hour getting treatment in the dressing room before a 49-run partnership with Irfan Pathan gave the Punjab team a lifeline that they went on to exploit to the fullest.

Shivram's blooper merely continued what was a bad day for umpires in general. Billy Doctrove and Suresh Shastri were the culprits in the day's earlier game, where Bangalore's Royal Challengers edged out Deccan Chargers in a last-ball thriller. The Hyderabad side were strolling it at one stage, and only an indiscreet stroke from Rohit Sharma gave Bangalore a glimmer of hope.

But with both VVS Laxman and Scott Styris getting the thorny end of the umpiring stick, the game changed utterly. Laxman was struck on the pads by a Praveen Kumar yorker. What's the problem, you might ask? Only that Kumar was bowling round the wicket and Laxman would have needed to be stuck a foot from the stumps for there to be any chance of it striking him in line.

But at least that was a marginal call. Shastri's decision, with Zaheer Khan bowling over the wicket, was laughably bad. You didn't need Hawkeye or any other gizmo to tell you that the ball had pitched way outside leg stump, and it made you wonder whether some umpires are as clueless about the leg-before rule as some players appear to be.

There's a frequent hue and cry about the lack of Indian representation on the ICC's Elite Panel of umpires. On this evidence, it's not hard to see why, even though it must be stressed that a hectic workload has reduced standards globally. Formerly great umpires staying on well past their sell-by date hasn't helped either.

The IPL likes to see itself as being on the cutting edge of world cricket. So why not a three-appeal system for each team? That way, you can also monitor umpiring standards, and the man who makes fewest mistakes could easily be rewarded with a cap of Lalit Modi's choice.

On the bright side, Rohit's batting illuminated a game between two poor sides. Unlike some of the others that are in contention for the orange cap, he rarely slogs the ball. What he does do is find the gaps effortlessly while timing his strokes to perfection. To watch him and Laxman bat in tandem was to be reminded that there's still a place for artistry in a form of the game where effectiveness, no matter how crude, is usually the watchword.