Elite list

by HAYDN GILL

A SIGNIFICANT REDUCTION in the number of umpires on the regional first-class panel could be on the cards if the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) accepts a recommendation from the International Cricket Council's regional performance manager for the Caribbean.

John Holder, the Barbadian-born English official who is charged with the responsibility of raising umpiring standards in the West Indies, England and the Americas, is proposing that an elite panel of umpires be introduced for the region's four-day championship with the aim of getting the best umpires to get more exposure.

"There is a problem here in the Caribbean in that you have an awful lot of umpires umpiring only a handful of matches," Holder told MIDWEEK SPORT.

"Ideally you want an elite dozen umpires or so. Trying to get that sort of structure in place may not be easy."

During last season's expanded first-class competition, the WICB utilised the services of 36 umpires to officiate in 42 matches.

An almost similar number of umpires were used in previous seasons when there were half the number of matches.

A few years ago when the then WICB president Teddy Griffith made a similar recommendation, the suggestion did not meet the approval of the West Indies Cricket Umpires' Association with arguments being advanced that it would stifle the development of umpires.

"The number of matches will determine the number of umpires you need, but the present situation where over three years an umpire may do maybe four or five first-class matches, you will never really improve," Holder said.

"You need to be constantly at a high level to develop. We need fewer umpires at the top, but you put a process in place where umpires a little farther down can also benefit from hard work and get to the top."

In trying to point to the potential success of an elite panel of umpires for regional competitions, Holder revealed that authorities in Australia tried a similar system a few years ago when they reduced their crop of first-class umpires to around 15.

The 64-year-old Holder, who stood in 11 Tests and 19 One-Day Internationals, and also spent 27 years as a first-class umpire on the English county circuit before retiring in September, is looking forward to the challenge of raising the standard of umpiring in the Caribbean.

"It is a challenge. The thing I have to try and establish most importantly is trust," he said.

"The people who I am going to work with are going to have to trust me. Any advice I offer is in their best interest."

Another of Holder's recommendations is for the establishment of a system to allow umpires to obtain feedback from the relevant stakeholders.

"We need monitoring - reports from captains and match referees," he said.

"If successive captains identify an area where an umpire is lacking, they [umpires] need to see it. We need something like that, where there is clarity and the umpires can see what the captains and referees think about them which I don't think exists at present."

One of Holder's assignments was to observe regional umpires during the recent WICB President's Cup One-Day Tournament in Guyana.

The competition was badly affected by rain, limiting his chance to see most of the umpires, but he was impressed by Trinidadian official Peter Nero who also officiated in a few English county matches earlier this year as part of an exchange programme between the West Indies Cricket Board and the England and Wales Cricket Board.