Simon Taufel recalls his conversation with Sachin Tendulkar after giving him out wrongly

Simon Taufel is arguably the best umpire to have officiated the gentleman's game. He has won the 'Umpire of the Year' award for five consecutive years and has also been a part of the International Cricket Council (ICC)'s Elite panel of umpires. His decisions on the field were spot on. However, he had erred just once in his career and that happened to be against the Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar.

The incident had happened during a Test match between India and England at Trent Bridge in 2007 where Simon had wrongly given the Little Master out off a Paul Collingwood delivery just nine runs short of what would have been an outstanding century. Sachin had all the reason to be disgruntled as the hawkeye showed that the ball was missing the off-stump. Taufel then recalled his and Tendulkar's conversation the next morning.

'You are a good umpire': Simon Taufel

“The following morning I happened to pass by Sachin on my normal morning walk out to the middle and I come across Sachin and I said, ‘look, yesterday I got it wrong, you know? I’ve looked at it, I got it wrong.’ He said, ‘look, Simon, I know.’ He said, ‘you’re a good umpire, you don’t often get many wrong, it’s okay, don’t worry about it,’ said Taufel while talking to the renowned sports anchor/broadcaster Gaurav Kapur on 22 Yarns.

“And out of that sort of exchange, which wasn’t an apology for the sake of making him feel better or me feel better, it was just an acknowledgment that we were both out there doing our best. This is sport, and I wanted to acknowledge that I knew the fact that he was unhappy, and I was doing my best to make sure that that didn’t happen again. That was really the underlying message,” the legendary umpire added.

India Vs England 2007 Test series

India went on to win that second Test match at Trent Bridge by seven wickets after the opening Test at Lord's had ended in a draw. The final Test also ended in a stalemate as India won the three-match series 1-0. This was a much-needed win for Rahul Dravid & Co. after they were ousted from the 2007 World Cup in the group stage itself a few months back in the Caribbean. Meanwhile, Dravid also relinquished his captaincy after this tour as well.

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