Third umpire must decide doubtful catches: Ganguly

India captain Sourav Ganguly has advocated the use of the third umpire for deciding doubtful catches and said the fear of inviting the wrath of the match-referee restrained him from contesting his dismissal in Wednesday's triseries match against South Africa though he was convinced the catch had not been taken cleanly.

Ganguly, who has run into trouble with match-referees quite often in recent times for showing dissent to umpires, was given out, caught by Jacques Kallis at second slip off the bowling of Shaun Pollock after making 24 runs, but television replays later showed the ball had touched the ground before the fielder actually took control of it.

"I saw the catch had been grassed and indicated so to the umpire but I didn't want to press on," Ganguly said after the match.

"I was scared of the match referee. Such (wrong) decisions have happened so many times to me in the last few matches. It was one more occasion," he said.

The Indian captain strongly advocated the use of technology to decide such catches.

"It is never going to be a situation where a fielder would indicate if he had caught it cleanly," Ganguly said. "I think you got to use the technology more often."

He went on to add: "Use third umpire whenever it is possible... I thought even the decision against Rahul (Dravid), was a bit suspect." He was referring to the catch that Lance Klusener took at short mid-on to dismiss the Indian vice-captain.

Pollock differed with the Indian captain on the issue and said the standing umpires' decision should be considered final.

"Catches when referred to third umpires can cause a lot of wrong decisions. I think umpires, standing in the middle, should use their judgement as often as possible," the South African captain said.

Pollock said not for once did he think the catch was not picked up clean by Kallis. "I haven't seen the replays - I didn't find anything wrong with the chance."

He said in such doubtful cases there was no option but to believe what the fielders themselves said and go by the decision of the umpire.

"I would go by the cricketer's word," said Pollock. "In any case, umpires are there in the middle to make a judgement on it."

But Ganguly felt that many times even the fielder himself is not sure whether he took the catch cleanly and the mattermust be referred to the third umpire.

Pollock also clarified he didn't gesture at Dravid with a finger raised after the batsman had stood his ground, sure in his belief that Klusener had caught the ball on first bounce.

"I didn't gesture to Dravid, I just pointed the finger to him and indicated the umpire had already ruled against him."

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Mail Cricket Editor