Umpiring in the 1974–75 Ashes series
The main point of contention in the umpiring of the 1974–75 Ashes series was the intimidatory bowling of the Australian fast bowlers Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. There were a few other issues, though there were the usual cases of batsmen being given out or not out despite the differing opinions of the players and umpire. 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. Tom Brooks and Robin Bailhache were the umpires in all six Tests, but were junior for so important a series. Brooks having made his debut in the 1970–71 Ashes series and Bailhache in the First Test at Brisbane. Unusually for Australian umpires of the time Brooks had played First Class Cricket – he had been a lively fast-medium bowler – and as a result was