Kulkarni officiated as umpires' assessment not done for 2 years

A loophole in the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s working procedure enabled Maharashtra umpire Vineet Kulkarni to remain India's No 1 match official, as Sundaram Ravi is already in the ICC Elite Panel.

Kulkarni got on-field assignments during the ongoing series against South Africa because going by BCCI's guidelines, their top umpire in the ICC Emirates Panel gets on-field duty for ‘home’ series.

"There has been no BCCI Umpires' sub-committee's assessment meeting for the last two years. Kulkarni is getting assignments on the basis of his ranking points of 2013. After that, for two years, there has not been fresh evaluation. The list has not been updated," a BCCI official in the know of things said on Friday.

The official said Kulkarni's future will now depend a lot on the report ICC match referee Chris Broad gives.

"It will be Broad's assessment that will decide his future. Plus ICC's own video analysis team will analyse each and every contentious decision. There are three columns that match referees need to tick. Correct decision, error and inconclusive. If Broad ticks inconclusive column, Kulkarni might get a reprieve. Or else it will be ICC Umpires committee's prerogative," the source said.

Kulkarni, who is at the receiving end following some debatable decisions given by him in the ongoing India-South Africa series, had Indian team manager Vinod Phadke openly criticizing his performance.

He incidentally started off as a scorer and entered the BCCI panel in the latter part of the last decade.

Last year he was not assigned on-field duty in the Ranji Trophy final despite his home state, Maharashtra, not qualifying for the title round.

In fact, a former India Test player, who was the coach of a top State side, had given an adverse report about his decision.

Meanwhile, the BCCI has started a debriefing session of match referees and umpires from this Ranji Trophy season.

"Actually it has been decided that at the end of the match, the two on-field umpire and TV umpire will sit with match referee and the match will be dissected. This will enable the umpire to get a first-hand report of his performance from the match referee," said the source.