The SELECT PANEL of Umpires of the ICC is maybe the one thing which is least contested by anyone and regarding which not many have any complaints. The introduction of the new panel was aimed at allowing the best and most respected umpires to stand in the sport’s biggest games; to improve the overall standard of umpiring at international level; and to establish a benchmark to which future umpires could aspire.
The panel is originally made up of 8 umpires Steve Bucknor (West Indies)Asoka De Silva (Sri Lanka) Daryl Harper (Australia) Rudi Koertzen (South Africa) Dave Orchard (South Africa) David Shepherd (England) Russell Tiffin (Zimbabwe) and Srinivas Venkataraghavan (India). Two umpires from the so-named Elite Panel now stand in all Test matches and at least one member of the Elite Panel stands in each one-day international.
The panel will be assisted by ICC International Panel Umpire appointments: Darrell Hair, Simon Taufel, Arani Jayaprakash, Neil Mallender, Peter Willey, Brent Bowden, Aleem Dar, Nadeem Ghouri, Brian Jerling, TH Wijewardena and Kevan Barbour for the World Cup keeping in mind the number of Matches.