There are different ways of determining the accuracy of the umpires. Often an umpire’s accuracy is determined by how many times his decisions were upheld when they were reviewed.
The decisions which are not reviewed are marked as correct decisions automatically. However, it’s very much possible that a few of those decisions might be incorrect as well and were deemed correct only because they were not sent upstairs for a review.
As per a report published by ESPNcricinfo, If all the decisions made by an umpire are taken into account (their decisions which were not reviewed and their decisions which were reviewed), Michael Gough of England has the highest accuracy percentage of 95.1%.
The decisions which were not reviewed have been taken as upheld decisions and are added to the decisions which were reviewed and then upheld by the TV umpire. The percentage of the no. of upheld decisions to the total no. of decisions made by the umpires is their accuracy percentage.
The report states that the two umpires which are next in the list after Gough are Kumar Dharmasena of Sri Lanka with an accuracy percentage of 78.7 and Ian Gould with an accuracy percentage of 77.2.
However, sometimes when a decision is upheld by the TV umpire, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the on-field umpire was accurate. The on-field umpire gets the benefit of the doubt on a number of occasions and that benefit of the doubt is called the “umpire’s call”.
So, if all the decisions which were upheld because of the “umpire’s call” are removed from the list and then the accuracy percentage is adjusted again, Michael Gough still tops the list with an accuracy percentage of 82.9.
With the adjusted accuracy percentage, Dharmasena goes out of top 3. Ian Gould moves up to no. 2, however his adjusted accuracy percentage comes down to 59.6 as compared to the original accuracy percentage of 77.2.
The third in the list with the adjusted accuracy percentage is Marais Erasmus of South Africa as his adjusted accuracy percentage is 58.9.
If we talk about the umpires who are in bottom 3 in terms of their accuracy, they are Nigel Llong of England with an accuracy percentage of 63.8, Joel Wilson of West Indies with an accuracy percentage of 64.5 and Chris Gaffaney of New Zealand with an accuracy percentage of 64.6.
If the “umpire’s calls” are removed and the accuracy percentage is adjusted, Gaffaney becomes the most inaccurate umpire with the adjusted accuracy percentage of 34.38. The next two in the list are Richard Illingworth of England and Rod Tucker of Australia with the adjusted accuracy percentage of 47.2 and 49.2 respectively.
