Sports
India's Ravi to officiate in World Cup opener
Dubai, Jan 30
India's S. Ravi will officiate in the World Cup opener between hosts New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Christchurch Feb 14.
While
Marais Erasmus and Nigel Llong will be the on-field umpires, Ravi and
Simon Fry will be the third and fourth umpires, respectively, with David
Boon serving as the match referee, the International Cricket Council
(ICC) announced Friday.
On the same day in a day-night fixture in
Melbourne, Australia will lock horns with England in a match which will
be umpired by Aleem Dar and Kumar Dharmasena. Billy Bowden will act as
the third umpire while Joel Wilson will perform the fourth umpire's
duties. Jeff Crowe will be the match referee.
Apart from Boon and
Crowe, Chris Broad, Ranjan Madugalle and Roshan Mahanama will share the
match referees' responsibilities during the 44-day tournament in which
49 matches will be played from Feb 14 to March 29 in Australia and New
Zealand. All five are members of the Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees.
All
12 members of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires will be available for the
World Cup. Apart from the four on-field umpires in action on the opening
day, Bruce Oxenford, Ian Gould, Paul Reiffel, Richard Illingworth,
Richard Kettleborough, Rod Tucker and Steve Davis will feature during
the event.
Fry, Ravi and Wilson are members of the International
Panel of ICC Umpires. They will be joined by Johan Cloete, Chris
Gaffaney, Michael Gough, Ranmore Martinesz and Ruchira Palliyaguru.
Meanwhile,
the ICC has also confirmed umpire appointments for the 14 warm-up
matches. These matches will be played in Christchurch, Adelaide,
Melbourne and Sydney.