Bucknor recalls wrong decisions he made against Tendulkar

Steve Bucknor, one of the most high-profile umpires in cricket's recent history, has talked about two mistakes he made against Sachin Tendulkar.

Eleven years after his retirement, Bucknor recalled on the Mason and Guests radio programme in Barbados earlier this week: "Tendulkar was given out on two different occasions when those were mistakes. I do not think any umpire would want to do a wrong thing. It lives with him and his future could be jeopardised."

"To err is human…Once in Australia, I gave him out leg before wicket and the ball was going over the top. Another time, in India it was caught behind. The ball deviated after passing the bat but there was no touch.

But the match was at Eden Gardens and when you are at the Eden and India is batting, you hear nothing. Because 100,000 spectators are making noise. Those were the mistakes and I was unhappy. I am saying a human is going to make mistakes and accepting mistakes are part of life," Bucknor said.

Bucknor, settled in New York since his retirement, also said Sachin's greatness lay in the fact that he could accumulate shots because he had all the shots in his inventory.

Talking about the best batsmen he has seen, Bucknor, however, rated Brian Lara, who he called 'poetry in motion', ahead of Tendulkar.

Tendulkar's run-ins with Bucknor have been well-chronicled. In 2019, ICC's Twitter handle had jokingly responded to a post by Sachin Tendulkar, with a video of him bowling, with a meme featuring Steve Bucknorsignalling a no-ball. "At least this time I am bowling and not batting..umpire's decision is always the final decision," Tendulkar had replied.