Dubai: Sources have said Wednesday, that Indian umpire Sundaram Ravi is set to get the axe from ICC’s Elite panel List. The Indian has been a part of the Elite Panel of Umpires but will not feature in the new list which will be announced after the World Cup. Ravi incidentally is among the 16 umpires to do World Cup duty.
The decision to drop Ravi was taken at the ICC Umpires Committee meeting April 24. It should be mentioned here that before Ravi, the only Indian umpire to have found a place in the Elite list was Sreenivas Venkatraghavan. The off-spinner turned umpire retired from the game in 2004. After that it had taken 11 years for an Indian to feature in the panel.
“The Elite panel is a tough place to survive with so much competition and high-pressure, top-level games. Ravi was lying at the bottom in the report card prepared over the last couple of years for the 12 elite level umpires,” said an official aware of the development.
The 53-year-old was under fire during an IPL match between Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) and Mumbai Indians (MI) after he failed to spot a no-ball from Lasith Malinga. It was the last ball of the match with RCB needing seven to win.
RCB captain Virat Kohli had then blasted the umpire. “We are playing IPL, not club cricket. That’s a ridiculous call off the last ball. The umpires should have their eyes open, it was a no-ball by an inch,” Kohli had said after the game.
The howler followed some other wrong decisions in international matches. It affected his rating. “The ICC has a proper system in place which evaluates an umpire’s performance throughout the year,” said the official.
