CHENNAI: India has lost its lone member on the ICC’s Elite Panel of umpires. S Ravi has been removed from the list for a dip in performance. After the world body’s annual appraisal of umpires, he is the only one left out of the 12-member panel because of this reason. The other omission is England’s Ian Gould, who has retired.
Ravi became part of the Elite Panel in 2015. He was the second Indian to make the cut, 11 years after S Venkataraghavan’s retirement from the panel. It has been reliably learnt that Ravi’s umpiring was deemed not up to the mark. According to sources close to developments, the accuracy percentage of his decision making in the period from July 2018 to June 2019 was below par. Normally for those in the Elite Panel, this should be above 96%.
The evaluation of umpires was done by a committee comprising Geoff Allardice, ICC’s General Manager (Cricket), player-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar and match referees David Boon and Ranjan Madugalle. The evaluation is a year-long process, where the performance of umpires is recorded from every match. In place of Gould and Ravi, England’s Michael Gough and Joel Wilson of the West Indies were included in the Elite Panel.
It was learnt that Ravi had just about survived the axe last year. “It was a close call last year also. There was a difference between him and others in terms of accurate decisions. Each decision made by the umpires is fed into a system. All errors are recorded. It was found that the numbers of errors made by Ravi was above the acceptable level,” said sources.
This is the first time in three years that the ICC has made changes in the Elite Panel. The 12 umpires from this list officiate all over the world. On an average, one umpire does duty for 60-70 days a year. There is also an International Panel of umpires, a rung below the Elite Panel. There are four each from the 12 Test-playing countries in this, who do duty in bilateral series.
Although Ravi has a theoretical chance of making it to the International Panel, chances of that are not high. Once the ICC removes someone from the Elite Panel, it’s assumed that someone else will be groomed in his place. India’s best bet to make the Elite Panel is Nitin Menon, who is currently part of the International Panel.