International Cricket Council chairman Greg Barclay assured that they were set to reintroduce neutral umpiring soon in Tests that had been halted since the outbreak of Covid-19 across the globe."I think in the COVID days, the home umpires got some exposure to stand for Test umpiring. It split things a bit wider. If you look at the stats, you can see that there was a pretty much thereabout the teams' performances than what we had the neutral umpires," Barclay said."We are now the other side of the COVID and we are reintroducing the neutral umpiring arrangements which was decided in the board meeting we had a couple of weeks ago. We will see neutral umpires back up and running again. I can't give you the date due to operational issues but soon."
‘There were some benefits (of Covid) for cricket. One of them was the chance to use umpires at home. It has given home umpires some exposure to international cricket. I think that’s good,’ the ICC boss told reporters during a press conference in Mirpur on Monday. In Test matches two on-field umpires, one will be a neutral umpire while the match referee and TV umpires will be neutral as well and only the fourth umpire will be home umpires. However, the home umpires will be officiating ODIs and T20s.Bangladesh all-rounder Shakib Al Hasan raised his voice for neutral umpires during the Test series against South Africa that was held in April.Test skipper Mominul Haque and team director Khaled Mahmud echoed the same sentiment.‘I think if you look at the stats, there or there about in terms of their performances compared with the neutral umpires. But, we are at the other side of Covid so we are reintroducing neutral umpire arrangement in the last board meeting. You will see neutral umpires back up and running again,’ added Barclay added.
