Umpire Dickie Bird stood head and shoulders above everyone else on this list.
Until DRS arrived in 2009, Billy Bowden and Simon Taufel took up the responsibility.
When DRS arrived, though, the entire definition of umpiring shifted.
It seemed as if a clear line had been established between right and bad.
Except on rare times when even the DRS couldn’t bring out the rough perfection, there was very little room for the hazy lines.
After the debut of DRS, who ESPNcricinfo has regarded to be among the elites, we will look at the three most accurate umpires.
But, before we go off on some arbitrary ecstasy, let us explain how the decisions were made.
This is a compilation of 2 separate lists. The first of which includes all of the umpire’s decisions, both reviewed and unreviewed.
And the second of which judges the umpires only on the basis of those calls in which the benefit of the doubt was not used.
Accuracy by including Umpire’s all decisions
With a 95.1 percent accuracy rate, Michael Gough of England is at the top of the list.
For an umpire of even the best calibre, that is a startling sum.
According to these numbers, Kumar Dharmasena of Sri Lanka is in second place with 78.22% accuracy, while Ian Gould of England is in third place. His figures were accurate to 77.2 percent.
Accuracy by deducting ‘Umpires call’
The second list was created by omitting those ‘benefit of doubt’ situations.
And while Michael Gough still held on to the ace, his numbers plummeted to 82.9 percent accuracy.
Kumar Dharmasena, on the other hand, gets ejected from the new list, and Ian Gould takes over in second place, despite a significant drop in his numbers, which now stand at a pathetic 59.6%.
Marais Erasmus from South Africa is the new third-place scorer, with a 58.9% accuracy rate.
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