Standard of umpring.

Just seen that Billy Bowden is returning to the "elite" panel of umpires after a stint in the  International Panel of ICC Umpires due to being demoted after a string of poor decisions and will be quickly added to be the on-field umpire list in the coming Ashes.  Surely this is in response by the ICC to the availability of only four non Eng/Aus for the last Ashes and the (at times) very bad umpiring and (at times) bizarre 3rd umpire decisions.   This is happening despite there being a set list of 12 "elite" umpires of which none are being demoted to account for Bowdens return even though his fellow Kiwi Tony Hill had an absolutely shocking series in England. Hill will only be a 3rd umpire in Australia. To me, Hill should have been demoted for his shocking series and not been given the 3rd umpire role even though it would again only leave the four umpires.  Geoff Allardice who is the ICC's general manager of cricket operations had this to say "We felt that we needed to spread the appointments across five umpires for the five-Test series, rather than just the four that were used in the UK"   Just sounds like to me that they are keeping Hill at a fairly safe distance.   As a whole the four umpires used in the last Ashes (Dar, Erasmus, Hill and Dharmasena were 5.5% worse than the DRS percentage

But why bring back an umpire whose stats have not improved since he was demoted for many high profile errors in the first place?  That is just like replacing like for like.

Is this the right way to go by the ICC.?  But with such limited choice what else can they do?

DRS only and a three man YES/NO decision panel.?  Or is that one step too far and one for the future.

Or get me two men in white coats:D 

Skyeman, replacing Hill with Bowden is not like for like. Bowden did make mistakes, some high profiles ones at that. But Hill is not good enough to umpire at the highest level. I was not at all shocked at the terrible shocker that he had in the summer. He was awful before that, and ICC promoting him to the elite panel was the joke of 2013. He was absolutely atrocious when he was officiating in Zimbabwe prior to his promotion. He never provided me with any sense of confidence whenever I followed games he was officiating.
All I can say is, the on-field umpires better not make any mistakes when Hill is in the TV box!.