Hussain calls for umpiring consistency

England captain Nasser Hussain called for umpires to be appointed for a whole series to provide consistency after a number of contentious decisions during the innings defeat by Sri Lanka on Tuesday.

England coach Duncan Fletcher, while saying he was not allowed to comment directly, had a sideswipe at the umpires during the first Test, Peter Manuel and A.V. Jayaprakash.

"All I can say is that if you were watching and didn't see what happened, you must be blind," he said. England lost by an innings and 28 runs on the final day.

Hussain stopped just short of openly condemning the umpires after the questionable dismissals of opener Michael Atherton and the team's last recognised batsman Craig White.

"We have to sit down and take the heat out of the situation.

"I think it is very dangerous to change the umpire in the middle of the Test series because the whole interpretation of rules changes as well," said Hussain.

"The interpretation of lbw - some people give you out sweeping and some people give you out going back.

"It is just something l like to look at. I wish I had gone to the ICC meeting," he said. Hussain missed the meeting of all Test captains in Melbourne this month.

'Use third umpire'

Hussain said he would like the third umpire to be used more.

"There is a guy up here. It takes him five minutes to decide whether people are out, umpires should take that time. It is such an important thing," said Hussain.

He was referring to the dismissal of Atherton who was caught behind. Indian umpire Jayaprakash did not refer the catch to the third umpire to ensure it was taken cleanly. Two different umpires will take charge of the next Test in Kandy.

"We're not going to whine about it (the umpiring). We can go on about umpiring for as long as we want tonight but tomorrow we have to get on with it."

Sri Lankan captain Sanath Jayasuriya said: "It sometimes goes one way, then another -- it's the same for both sides."

England's Graeme Hick was given a suspended one-match ban after questioning his caught-behind dismissal in the first innings.

Hussain praises Sri Lanka

Hussain was full of praise for Sri Lanka although he indicated he thought they appealed too frequently. "What I can say is that we are playing against a mighty fine side," he said.

"They probably deserved to win or not to lose. If we had played badly we would have just cussed ourselves and got on with it but we played some good cricket."

"I don't think they need to do these periphery things. They won the toss, they batted and bowled really well.

"The skipper (Sanath Jayasuriya) and (Muttiah) Muralithran bowled well, they scored runs exceptionally, they don't need to do these periphery things," he said.

"Their batters looked fine batters, their bowling and their catching were exceptional."

Jayasuriya took four for 44 in the second innings and eight in the match. "When we played with an extra batsman, I knew I had to bowl a lot because we didn't have a left-arm spinner," he said.

"I think I bowled quite okay. I did my job more than batting in this game. It is not easy to bowl long spells because I am not used to," said Jayasuriya.

"Even though he was fit at the back of his mind, Murali would have had some concern over his fitness. Except for one or two overs he bowled really well," said Jayasuriya.

Mail Cricket Editor