Umpires S Ravi from Tamil Nadu and Vineet Kulkarni from Mumbai have been nominated to ICC’s International Panel for on-field duties by the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s umpires Sub-committee which met here at the National Cricket Academy on Thursday.
Hyderabad’s C Shamsuddin has retained his place as an off-field official while Delhi’s Anil Choudhary has replaced Sudhir Asnani of Madhya Pradesh following umpire appraisals over the past season and about appointments for the upcoming year in a meeting chaired by BCCI’s vice-president Niranjan Shah.
“The general consensus was that the quality of umpires in India has steadily improved ever since we brought in the review-system over the last four to five years. We were also supposed to recommend four umpires to the ICC International Panel and we decided to back Ravi and Kulkarni for on-field and Shamsuddin and Anil Chaudhary for off-field (duties),” said Shah.
The issue of India’s lack of representation on ICC’s Elite Panel was also raised in the meeting. “The absence of Indian umpires in the Elite Panel was discussed and we all felt that there are umpires, who have the potential to be a part of that panel and just that it will take some time for them to get there,” pointed out R Sudhakar Rao, the South Zone representative.