Aspirant umpires stumped by question paper

The huge gulf in the difficulty levels of two sets of examination left candidates stunned and disappointed.

“Easy questions for some and difficult for others,” an aspirant bemoaned.

 

Candidates appearing for the Board-conducted Refresher Course for Level-1 umpires were flabbergasted by the question paper they had to answer on June 10. The first set of exams were held on June 7 at Mumbai, Bangalore, Nagpur and Kolkata. Three days later, the candidates appeared at Indore, Pune, Chennai and Visakhapatnam.

The huge difference in the degree of difficulty involved in both the papers has left many a talented umpire disappointed.

According to a young candidate, the paper on June 7 was absolutely straightforward. “Straight out of the law book except for a couple of questions,” he said. “Paper 2 (on June 10) was full of tricky and hypothetical situations where a lot of thought was required.”

The umpires were left wondering why the candidates were asked to answer two different sets of question papers. “There is an element of doubt that the earlier paper was set to help a certain set of candidates because the questions were fairly easy. But why should candidates competing for the same job be treated differently? Easy questions for some and very difficult for others,” bemoaned a candidate, who had prepared hard for the course.

One of the candidates who appeared for the exams at Visakhapatnam observed, “The paper required a lot more time to complete than the two hours that were given because of the number of questions and the duration involved to attempt. Even so, not everyone had been sure of the answers, including some of the faculty involved. Paper 1, due to lesser number and easy nature of the questions, was something candidates could easily complete well within time, and even revise the answers.”

‘Tough situation’

A retired umpire noted, “The concept is the same, based on the law but the questions are twisted. Language, however, could have been issue too. It surely put candidates who appeared on June 10 in a tough situation. I feel the whole process was to deny candidates from some associations.”

It is learnt that of the eight educators, four are retired umpires. “Did these officials go through a course? Even the educators saw the paper on the day of the exams and were clueless about some of the answers. What was the criterion involved in selecting these educators? I also wonder why the exams were not held on the same day at these different centres. The candidates would not have felt being discriminated against,” said the former umpire.

The candidate added, "Earlier the Board conducted two exams for umpires - state panel and Ranji panel. Now it is Level 1, Level 1 refresher, Level 2 theory,  Practicals and Viva. It takes close to five years to become a BCCI panel umpire. And then such exams that discriminate can be very disheartening."