Stung by the umpiring bloopers in the second Ashes Test, Australian media on Monday spit venom on match officials, seeking the sacking of Rudy Koertzen and flaying the other "circus clown" Billy Doctrove.
The Daily Telegraph showed no mercy and questioned what Koertzen was doing there.
"If Rudi Koertzen was the chief executive of a major company he would have been sacked on the spot two years ago.
He was the umpire who convinced his co-umpires to misinterpret the rain rule which made a farce of the World Cup final.
Amazingly, he is still at large making major blunders which shape the results of series," the writer said.
The media here was outraged after Simon Katich was caught off a no ball which umpire Billy Doctrove failed to detect while Phillip Hughes was caught by England captain Andrew Strauss, at least Koertzen believed so as the South Africa refused to refer it to the third umpire.
Doctrove subsequently ruled Mike Hussey caught out even though replay didn't show any edge.
"I can forgive Billy Doctrove - just - for failing to detect that the ball which dismissed Simon Katich was a no-ball and the fact that Mike Hussey hit the ground and not the ball when he was given out. But there was absolutely no excuse for Koertzen not to go to the third umpire to decide whether Andrew Strauss has correctly caught Phil Hughes at slip," the writer fumed.
"Darrell Hair retired in his early 50s because he felt it was an appropriate time for an umpire to leave the game. Yet Koertzen, who turned 60 in March, has decided to go on until he is asked to leave. Life shouldn't work that way," the Daily Telegraph writer added.
Another writer in The Australian was equally harsh on the umpires.
"Cricket continues to make a fool of itself and this time umpires Rudi Koertzen and Billy Doctrove are the circus clowns," he said.
"They have proved with a series of terrible blunders on the fourth morning of second Test at Lord's that no amount of technology can improve a game if those in charge can't or won't use it," he added.
"Of the first four wickets which fell yesterday after England declared over night 521 ahead, only Ricky Ponting chopping the ball into his stumps appeared legitimately out.
"With the Hughes dismissal in particular, it was unfathomable how two experienced umpires would refuse to use the technology provided when they had used it the day before," the writer wondered.
"More technology will be introduced permanently in October when the experimental referral system becomes mandatory...Given the scattergun approach to technology in this game, it has done much to increase the exasperation of the Australians," he added.
