Oz cricket columnist says Koertzen must retire now

Melbourne, July 20 (ANI): Australia's premier cricket writer Robert Craddock has said that South African and ICC elite umpire Rudi Koertzen should be asked to retire immediately following several questionable decisions that he took in the ongoing second Ashes Test at Lords

Stating that he should have retired two years ago when he convinced his co-umpires to misinterpret the rain rule, which made a farce of the World Cup final, Craddock said that Koertzen's performance in the current Ashes was equally dismal.

"Amazingly, he is still at large making major blunders which shape the results of series," Craddock writes in his news.com.au blog.

"I can forgive Billy Doctrove - just - for failing to detect the fact that Mike Hussey hit the ground and not the ball when he was given out. And even forgive Koertzen for not picking up that Flintoff's dismissal of Katich should have been a no ball. 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," Craddock says.

"Had he done so Hughes would have been given not out because at the very least there was major doubt the ball carried? That Koertzen had to ask Doctrove what he thought should have been reason enough to go upstairs," he adds. (ANI)