April 5th 2011 - English umpire Barry Dudlestone, who retired from the England and Wales Cricket Board's (ECB) first class umpire's list last September after 27 years (E-News 668-3258, 16 September 2010), has a new job as the International Cricket Council's (ICC) Regional Umpire Performance Manager (RUPM) for Europe and the Americas. Dudlestone, who turned 65 last July, replaces the original RUPM appointee for that area, John Holder, who also had his sixty-fifth birthday in 2010 but left the ECB list in 2009 (E-News 538-2757, 23 December 2009), however, just when the two men changed over is not clear.
The ICC set up its RUPM group in June 2008 in what it called at the time "another of its initiatives to increase the level of support to the world’s top match officials", the role of the new group being to "coach, mentor and assist [its international] umpires as they strive for on-field excellence" (E-News 262-1417, 26 June 2008).
Apart from Holder, the other four members of the inaugural RUPM panel were: Arani Jayaprakash of India (India and Bangladesh); Peter Manuel from Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka and Pakistan); Ian Robinson of Zimbabwe (Africa); and Australian Bob Stratford (Australia and New Zealand). Robinson was replaced by Rudi Koertzen of South Africa last July (E-News 640-3191, 30 July 2010), but apart from the Zimbabwean and Holder the other three originals currently remain in their positions.
Dudlestone, whose name was recently added to the ICC's web site as a RUPM member, stood in 426 first class match as an umpire, two of which were Tests, and also in 451 List A games, four of which were One Day Internationals (ODI). There were also 56 domestic Twenty20 matches, as well as womens' ODIs and youth Test and ODIs. Prior to that he played most of his cricket for Leicestershire, making his first class debut in August 1966 and playing his last such match in June 1983, two months after he officiated in his initial game at that level as an umpire.
When he retired at the end of the last English summer, Dudlestone indicated that his nearly 50 year career in cricket would not be entirely over for he planned to work as a tour guide for his Sunsport travel company which was going to take a group of supporters to watch the Ashes series in Australia. No mention appears to have been made publicly at the time about him taking up the RUPM role, therefore his succession may have been fairly recent.
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