In every profession, once in a blue moon, comes a person that revolutionizes it. He breaks the shackles of convention and instead of following a tradition, creates one of his own. He changes the way the world sees his profession. In the world of cricket umpires, Simon Taufel is that man. A profession in which middle-aged men with pot-bellies were a norm, Taufel stood in his first Test match at the age of 29. Such was the excellence of Taufel’s skills that he was undisputedly named the best umpire of the year by the ICC from 2004 to 2008. After spending 12 years officiating at the highest level, Taufel retired in 2012 and took up the role of umpire performance and training manager with the ICC. He now plays an active role in developing match officials around the world and preparing them to meet the increasing demands of the job. In India Taufel headed a 15-day national camp in 2014 to train the domestic officials. On Saturday, he was back in the country to conduct the pre season match officials’ conclave for the Indian umpires and match referees ahead of Pepsi IPL 2015. He shared his vast knowledge and understanding of the game with them, was probed with questions from his very enthusiastic listeners and oversaw some interesting mock case study exercises. After the first day of the workshop, Taufel shared his views to IPLT20.COM on the growth of cricket umpiring as a profession and his experiences of interacting with the Indian officials. He also spoke of the role of IPL in developing the profession. How would you summarise the first day of the workshop? It was quite full, very engaging and dynamic. It was great to spend some time with the guys since the national workshop we did in September last year. I am very satisfied and encouraged by the engagement shown by the umpires and the referees. It was amazing to have someone like Rohit Sharma turn up to give his views to the officials. We discussed about the playing conditions, code of conduct and the various official procedures in order to have the guys fully prepared for the season ahead.

You have spoken before about the difference in playing conditions in various tournaments. Do you think the IPL Playing Conditions are at par with the international level? There is so much for the umpires to know. We went through a few codes today and the playing conditions code was a big part of the discussion. One thing we try is to align the interpretations of the playing conditions as closely to international cricket as we can but also realize that IPL is a domestic tournament and hence we apply a lot of our common understandings as well. There are a lot of small twists here and there but on the whole when a player goes on the field, he understands exactly what the rules are regarding the playing conditions. I think the IPL playing conditions are at par with the international standard. One great thing about the IPL is this consultation process between the IPL management and the ICC. We work through some of the differences and we make sure we are at the same level. Has your new role with the ICC management helped you gain a different perspective on umpiring? I love what I do. I love to be able to support and help these guys to be more comfortable with their roles. It’s a very demanding job that they do and it has gotten a lot more scrutinized with the level of improvement in technology and broadcasting. Our job is to make the umpires’ job as easy as possible and deal with the changing demands of the game. And I love my job. What has your experience been interacting with the Indian umpires? Every country has a unique cricketing history and cricket culture, and India is no different. There has been a great push in India to continually produce the best cricketers in the world and now we are working on a strategy to produce the best match officials as well. That’s why we need to take some best practice examples from different countries and share that information to keep cricket growing domestically and globally. When it comes to the ICC elite panel, India has had only one representative so far – S Venkataraghavan. Why do you think that is? It takes a long time to produce Test level and elite umpires. It takes a lot of investment, support programmes and development, just like it takes to produce top-level cricketers. I cannot tell you why we haven’t had many Indian umpires in the ICC Elite Panel but I know that we are close. I am pleased to see that the BCCI is producing a really, really strong pool of first-class umpires. We will see the cream rise up to the top-level. There is no doubt that more and more Indian umpires are getting opportunities at the highest level. We have undertaken exchange programmes with them, they are getting opportunities at World T20 events and we have had them in the World Cup as well. Last year we had an Indian umpire officiating in the IPL final for the first time. We are making progress. All the work we are putting in is producing results, and that is important. You spoke last year about how we need more umpires from countries other than England and Australia in the Elite Panel. Since then, have you seen a positive sign in that regards? The best example of the progress I can give you is the 2015 ICC World Cup. We had eight umpires from the ICC Elite Panel and some from other countries like India, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. And the best thing was that the umpires from these countries stood up and performed equally well as the members of the Elite Panel. They combined in such a way that it was difficult to differentiate the two groups. That tells us that our programmes have worked and we are producing more international umpires from all countries. We will keep working on that depth as much as we can. The home boards together have shown a lot of focus in development in this area and we are moving in the right direction. We had Rohit Sharmahere today interacting with these match officials and sharing his views on various on-field management subjects. Have you conducted such exercises before? We have done it before but probably not enough. I remember we brought in Anil Kumble and Rahul Dravid to share their views with the umpires. I think we need to do more of that to build a sound professional working relationship, to get a different perspective and listen to their side of the story so that we can help them better. It was great to have Rohit’s time. To have a high-profile Indian cricketer and an IPL captain here today and have him be so open and honest in expressing his thoughts in this environment was a very big step. It told us that cricket is a people’s game. We realized that he is just another person, and hopefully, Rohit walked away with that feeling as well – that we are dealing with people. With the demands the modern umpires are faced with, is there a case for psychological support for them as there is for players? We have actually started to do so. In fact, for the 2015 World Cup preparation we engaged a sports psychologist in Melbourne to help the umpires stay in the present, keep a clear mind and be more self-aware when they start to get a bit distracted. We live in an age where an umpire has his decision dissect in front of him and he gets an instant feedback on whether he has got it right or wrong. So, mentally, their game is incredibly tough now. We have also got more scrutiny, media coverage and with the arm-chair viewer getting so much information, we have more and more people talking about an umpire’s performance. We now also have a new feature where the on-field umpire’s communication with the third umpire goes live on air. So, now people get to see and hear how the umpires work and that provides a different dynamic. That requires that the umpires have more tools at their disposal to be mentally stronger to cope with the challenges of the changing game. I have no doubt that an umpire’s job is primarily mental. He needs to be mentally strong, confident to do the right thing and have skills to deal with different personalities. The umpires need to realize that every captain and individual is different. We need to be able to appreciate and work with the diversity that every individual brings with him. We have to be more aware of our own strengths and weaknesses and that’s what we try to achieve with these workshops. We try to find out how we can use our strengths to maximize our performance and more importantly, identify our weaknesses and turn them into our strengths. There are cricket laws and rules written in black and white. But the interpretation of those laws is very subjective and differs from person to person. Two umpires will handle a situation in different ways. How do you train them in this regards? That’s the beauty of our game – it is a game of variables where nothing and no one is perfect. We have two umpires on the field and they may not make the same lbw decision in exactly the same way. We don’t play with a perfectly round ball, we don’t play on the same kind of surface every day, and we don’t play under uniform weather conditions. Everything changes and with it, cricket changes. That’s what makes cricket so interesting that we can talk about it for hours. So, our challenge during such workshop discussions is to allow for these individual differences, but when it comes to interpretations, we form a single intent heading in the same direction, so that the players have a clear idea of what to expect in certain situations. We try to use examples to bring in some degree of consistency. Every situation will be slightly different, and with the work put in the background, we give them the confidence that when faced with any situation, they will make the right decision. Over the years, there has been a significant increase in young men taking up cricket umpiring as a career. That must really please you since you were the torchbearer in this regards. It is a career-path now, and the IPL is a great example of how the Indian umpires, in particular, can get a profile, earn reasonable money and also showcase their ability to push for higher honours. We have more umpires pushing for selection in the ICC Elite Panel, which is a great thing. When the ICC Elite Panel came into being in 2002, the average age of its umpires was 53. Last year it was 49 years, and it is continuing to come down. That just shows the growing nature of the game. Your average umpire today is somewhere in his mid-forties, probably has two kids and if he is successful, he travels for seven months a year. It is a very public job that we do and it is important to support these guys. It is a very challenging but at the same time, a very rewarding job.