Umpires' seminar in Jamshedpur

umpires seminar in Jamshedpur The annual all-India umpires' seminar, conducted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India, will be held at Jamshedpur on September 9 and 10. It will discuss current changes in the Laws of Cricket.

The seminar, to be attended by all Ranji Trophy, all-India and international panel umpires, will be conducted by S Venkataraghavan and A V Jayaprakash, India's representatives on the International Cricket Council umpires' panel.

Both are in London at the moment to attend the ICC meeting, convened to discuss the changes in the laws of the game.

One of the significant new laws which is expected to be discussed at length is the one on 'sledging'. The ICC has empowered field umpires to impose a five-run penalty on teams guilty of indulging in it.

It has come under fire from Australian captain Steve Waugh who has called the new rule, introduced to curb nasty on-field verbal exchanges between players, 'ridiculous'.

Australian cricket teams have become renowned for the practice of sledging in recent years, although Waugh has termed the Aussie tactics as 'mental disintegration' and not verbal abuse.

"I don't think we sledge," Waugh said last week in Sydney. "I would prefer to call it mental disintegration. It's all part of the game. Test cricket is about not only testing your skill but testing your mind powers in certain situations, how you handle it."

Mail Cricket Editor