Does the presence of neutral umpires reduce prejudice in cricket?

A. Nilesh Fernando and Siddharth Eapen George, out of sight, out of mind? The effect of peer evaluators on intragroup bias (2022), University of Notre Dame and National University of Singapore (working paper).

In 1986, Imran Khan, captain of the Pakistan cricket team, invited Indian umpires VK Ramaswamy and Piloo Reporter to lead Pakistan’s match against West Indies in Lahore. It was the first time that neutral umpires were in a Test game, before that only umpires from the host country led games. It was a time when the home sides of Pakistan were more often criticized for taking advantage of the bias of these home referees. Khan would later speak of the resistance of cricket traditionalists to introducing the idea of ​​neutral umpires. And after playing with the idea for years, the International Cricket Council (ICC) gave in and began to appoint one neutral referee per Test from 1992 on a trial basis. In 1994 the practice for all Tests was institutionalized and in 2002 it was made mandatory for both on-field umpires to come from neutral countries.

This continued until 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and the ICC reverted to the home referee model to reduce the logistical burden in the efforts to restart international cricket. While there have been no controversies since the home referees took charge, former players such as Sunil Gavaskar called for the neutrals’ reinstatement to leave no room for the alleged bias towards the hosts. And so, in April 2022, the ICC announced that with the relaxation of the COVID-19 protocols, there would be one neutral referee per test from May, starting with the Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka test series. The move has sparked a new debate on whether nationality-neutral umpires are needed in cricket, with improvements in umpiring standards and the advancement of technology such as the Decision Review System.

The need for neutral umpires

Now a work study by two economics professors states that the presence of one neutral referee significantly reduces the preference for a home team. The premise of cricket umpiring was used to study how the presence of peers influences in-group bias. The researchers found that panels with a neutral referee awarded 14% more discretionary decisions against the home team and 23% fewer discretionary decisions against the foreign team. A discretionary decision, for the purpose of the investigation, is a decision more directly influenced by referee bias, such as an lbw, a run-out, or a catch by the wicketkeeper.

After reviewing data from international matches from 1877 to 2011, the authors studied the behavior of home and neutral referees with 1,09,996 decisions in 3,891 matches, both ODIs (One Day International) and Tests. The findings show that despite the introduction of TV umpires and match umpires to reduce the bias of umpires on the field, the presence of a neutral standing umpire still had a greater de-biasing impact on home umpires.

Neutrals do not check or evaluate their home colleagues and both umpires usually have a collegiate relationship. Nevertheless, neutral umpires may exert social pressure on home umpire colleagues to be impartial since they are on the field in direct line of sight to the home umpire, the study notes. Overall, the introduction of neutral referees reduced group bias by approximately 0.19 standard deviations, a slightly smaller effect than related interventions in other settings. This reduction in bias affected match results: neutral umpires made matches more competitive and increased foreign teams’ chances of winning under favorable conditions.

The de-biasing effect

However, it was also noted that the de-biasing effect was temporary. Home referees who work with a neutral colleague are significantly less biased during that match, but their behavior in subsequent matches, even those held a few days later, is unaffected. The authors discuss the reasons for the de-biasing effect, noting that it may be due to factors such as less public pressure on home referees when working with a neutral referee, and the home referees value their peers’ approval. The neutral presence serves as a visual reminder for the home referee to be impartial.

However, there was another problem. The working paper finds that policies that succeed in reducing prejudice along one dimension, such as nationality, may inadvertently increase inequality along other dimensions, such as race. Since most elite referees are white, the neutral refereeing mandates often resulted in the home country’s referees being replaced by white neutral referees. White majority teams were significantly more likely to have a referee of their own race, and this mitigated the impact of neutral referees on white home teams, the study found. White umpires led 76% of the games, while only 52% of the games featured a white majority team.

Take-aways from the study

The findings have implications for the design of policies to reduce bias. By studying how the presence of peers influences in-group bias among professional evaluators, it was concluded that removing all conflicting evaluators may be unnecessary, especially when there is a lack of required expertise. The authors call for further research to understand why peers reduce bias in some contexts, but exacerbate bias in others.

Regarding the ongoing debate about the neutral refereeing model, the ICC noted that the performance of home referees between July 2020 and February 2022 was strong and did not affect matches. So while T20s and ODIs will continue to have only home umpires for the 2022-23 period, the ICC wants to use more neutral umpires in Tests. The mandate for this period is that the field umpire, the match umpire and the third umpire must be neutral for a test match, while the second umpire and the fourth umpire may be from the host country.