Umpire Dinesh Mhatre – “Mein Cricket se gaddari Nahi kar Sakta”
Deferential Dinesh Mhatre Talks about umpiring –
A cricketer turned umpire-Dinesh Mhatre is a veteran umpire who officiates in Tennis Ball and Leather ball tournaments. While playing cricket back in his old days, Dinesh started umpiring as a part time profession. Having played cricket for Caliber Cricket club and 5-6 different cricket clubs, Dinesh has a good acumen as he stands to officiate. He started umpiring when he was just 16! Now he has an experience of more than 9 years as a full time umpire. In his 1st match as umpire, Dinesh got a valuable guidance from Mr.Prakash who was 2nd umpire during that match. Dinesh has had a glorious career so far as an umpire.
“In one of the match, when there was confusion whether the ball went beyond boundary or not, I did give a call in fielding side’s favor by not giving 4 runs. When there was a dispute between two teams, the fielding captain allowed conceding 4 runs to the opponents. It was a final over with 10 runs needed for victory and 2 wickets in hand. Fielding side took the remaining 2 wickets and won the match despite all the controversy. This was one very good experience” Said Dinesh.
Dinesh has a very unique technique to judge whether the given decision was correct or not. “Me sirf non striker batsman ko dekhta hu. Uska reaction batata hai ki decision sahi tha ya galat”. According to Dinesh, a cricketer knows well whether any decision was correct or not. Non- Striker is best seat in the ground to watch the cricket from. So it helps him to judge his own decisions. Dinesh has officiated in T20 and 45 overs format. He likes 45 overs format more over the T20s. When it comes to giving close decisions like LBW, Dinesh is in favor of batsman. “Unless I am 101% sure, I don’t give a batsman out. As a batsman you get only one chance and if a wrong decision is given then it can affect your career badly at times” He said.
He has had some bad experience about local cricketers as well. Match fixing and sledging which are two main issues in international cricket reflect in local cricket as well. Dinesh said, “Once in a tournament, a player sledged a fellow umpire of mine who was standing as leg umpire. As per rule if a player found doing any such misconduct then he can be banned from entire tournament. Using same rule I disqualified that player from rest of the tournament”. According to Dinesh, initially, umpires listen to the conversation. If they find anything abusive then they warn those players. If the same thing continues then the captain is given a warning about that player and the last stage is putting a ban straight away.
Recently during 2014 season he had a very shocking experience. He was going to officiate in one of the tournament’s final match. A day before that he got a call and he was invited for a meeting. There one of the team tried to bribe him by requesting him to give decisions their way. He simply returned home, called the organizer and arranged the new umpire for the match. Meanwhile he kept that team in dark about the fact that he will not stand as umpire in final. He went to ground next day for a final, sent his fellow umpire for toss and once toss was done, he returned back and that other umpire replaced him. “By doing this I ensured that they won’t get a chance to fix a match again” said Dinesh. Later when that team asked Dinesh about why he did that then Dinesh replied, “Cricket se me kabhi gaddari nhi karunga”.
Staying at Andheri, Dinesh travels a lot for umpiring. He has travelled to Pune, Palghar, Sawantwadi, Kudal , Alibaug and many such cities. According to Dinesh umpire must be strict and disciplined on field. He is in accord with the use of technology in the decision making process. It would help umpire to get accuracy in decisions. But he thinks that the condition of ground should be improved in local cricket. “Many times we have two wickets very close to each other. It can cause an injury.”Said Dinesh. Amongst all the umpires in the world, he likes Simon Taufel to the most.
Dinesh has a vast experience and has officiated in various tournaments like R.A.Bhaskar’s Cosmos Tournament and Scorpio cup, N.L.Ground’s goregaon boys cricket club’s tournament, All India Engineering tournament which takes place at Bhavan’s college, Venus cricket club’s tournament and many others. From different teams which he has seen, Sony entertainment team is his favorite. He accolade them when he said, “Their captain-Mr. Srinivasan handle’s the team very well. Their team management is extremely good and they have lots of discipline on field. So I like them.”Dinesh is certainly playing a key role in maintaining the integrity of the game and keeping it a gentleman’s game.