The International Cricket Council today named an unchanged Emirates Elite Panel of Umpires for the year 2016-17 following an annual review by its selection committee, which also includes celebrated former Indian captain S Venkatraghavan.
The decision was made by the ICC Umpires Selection Panel consisting of Chairman and ICC General Manager - Cricket, Geoff Allardice, ICC Chief Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle, ex-England player, coach, umpire and now a commentator - David Lloyd, and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, a former international umpire.
The Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires for 2016-2017 will be: Aleem Dar, Kumar Dharmasena, Marais Erasmus, Chris Gaffaney, Ian Gould, Richard Illingworth, Richard Kettleborough, Nigel Llong, Bruce Oxenford, Sundaram Ravi, Paul Reiffel and Rod Tucker. Ravi is the lone Indian in the panel as announced by the BCCI yesterday.
"The game's top umpires displayed their skills to an impressive degree in 2015-2016 by achieving a correct-decision percentage of 95.6 per cent in 220 matches across the three formats of Tests, One-Day Internationals and Twenty20 Internationals," the ICC said in a statement.
This is not only an improvement on 2014-2015 figures of 94 per cent, but is the highest since the Decision Review System was introduced in cricket in 2008.
Confirming the elite panel for the 2016-2017 season, ICC Umpires Selection Panel Chairman, Geoff Allardice, said: "The elite panel has had an outstanding 12 months. Based on the individual performances of each umpire, as well as their ability to work together as a group, the selectors have decided that the same 12 umpires deserve to be rewarded with appointment to the elite panel for 2016-2017.
"The selectors also noted the improved performances of some of the umpires on the international panel and expect them to be pushing for selection on the elite panel in years to come.
