Professional umpires set to be named

The International Cricket Council (ICC) hopes to announce the names of the first fully professional umpires within eight months.

"We will announce names later this year or at least by January or early February next year," said ICC chief executive Dave Richards after a meeting of the ICC executive board on Tuesday.

"The report on the process of selection will be based on the captains' and referees' reports over the last three or four years but we intend to judge umpires over the longer term rather than on a match-by-match basis."

An elite panel, probably comprising eight umpires, is due to be selected on the basis of the current umpires pool but will see the gradual phasing out of older officials.

"We haven't finalised the age of umpires yet but I am sure it will become attractive to younger people," said Richards.

"What we want in the long term is to have younger people looking at umpiring as a full-time career."

The final selection and training issues will be overseen by Sunil Gavaskar, chairman of the Cricket Committee, Playing, and incoming chief executive Malcolm Speed via an ICC referees' and umpires' manager.

The overall pool of umpires will increase from the current 20 to a two-tier system of 33 in total, enabling two independent elite umpires to stand at around 80 percent of all test matches.

But the thorny issue regarding differing salaries throughout the various test-playing nations - a constant bone of contention for umpires - may yet persist.

Richards said: "We will look at a two-fold approach to the remuneration with a retainer and a base figure set that may then be adjusted to the purchasing power in the relevant countries.

"Clearly this is quite different around the world but the principle of equal match fees is already there in World Cups and ICC Knock-Outs and it will be a key feature to all of this."

Umpires will go on exchanges around the full, test-playing member countries as well as the associate members to get a feel of umpiring in different climates.

ICC president Malcolm Gray said: "The whole of the rest of the sport, from players to administration to team management, is professional and there is a feeling that the regulation of the game is the one part that is not fully professionalised.

"There is a view that this must now happen."

Mail Cricket Editor