Umpiring in the 1970-71 Ashes series

The England team disputed several umpiring decisions in the 1970–71 Ashes series, Ray Illingworth, Geoffrey Boycott and John Snow in particular. After the series Boycott and Snow were called to a disciplinary hearing at Lords over their behaviour, and Illingworth and Snow never toured again. Only three umpires were used; Lou Rowan, who was most involved in the controversy, and his colleagues Tom Brooks and Max O'Connell who both debuted as Test umpires in the series. At the time, umpires had no recourse to slow motion replays and had to make decisions based on what they saw in a split second, with the benefit of the doubt always going to the batsman. As a result it was not uncommon for umpires to make mistakes, which over the course of a long series tended to cancel each other out. The best an umpire could do was to make an honest judgement based on what he saw.

Lou Rowan was a policeman and became senior umpire after the retirement of the much respected Col Egar. He was inclined to stand on his authority and retired at the end of the series. In 1972 he wrote The Umpire's Story which was highly critical of the England team, particularly of Illingworth and Snow. It even queried "was John Snow actually grabbed by a spectator who objected to Snow flattening an Australian batsman?". regardless of photographic evidence to the contrary. John Snow in his autobiography Cricket Rebel devoted a whole chapter to "Bitter Rows with Umpire Rowan" in which he wrote 'I have never come across another umpire so full of his own importance, so stubborn, lacking in humour, unreasonable and utterly unable'.E.W. Swanton was not convinced that the umpires were biased "...the old hobby horse trotted out of the alleged incompetence of Australian umpires. There were ructions ahead, of course, but my view was that Rowan, Tom Brooks and M.G. O'Connell, who shared the umpiring in the series, did a good job all through."

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