The International Cricket Council is partnering with Ten Sports and Sri Lanka Cricket to deliver the first simulated TV umpire technology training course at Galle, Sri Lanka, on 30 August 2011The course will be run by the highly respected Australian umpire and member of the Emirates ICC Elite Umpires panel Simon Taufel, who has been named Umpire of the Year at the LG ICC Awards on five occasions.Mr Taufel said: "This is a great initiative which will benefit the elite panel umpires and also the international panel umpires from Sri Lanka. The decision-making module will involve training on run out, stumping, clean catches, bump ball, lbw (Decision Review System), caught (DRS), boundaries and front-foot no-balls. While working through the various decision-making elements, there will also be a focus on effective communication skills.ICC Referees' and Umpires' Manager Vince van der Bijl said: "We would like to thank our partners, Sri Lanka Cricket and Ten Sports, in helping us develop this TV umpire simulation programme, that will be run by Simon. This is the first simulated training course we have run and we are delighted with the extension of our training programme aimed at developing the world's best match officials.Chief Executive of Taj TV Ten Sports Atul Pande added: "Taj TV (Ten Sports) is delighted to partner with the ICC for the launch of this third-umpire technology simulation training programme with the aim of developing world-class umpires."The occasion is all the more significant for us as this pilot program involves Sri Lanka Cricket – a long standing partner of Ten Sports. We have no doubt that this project will be a great success and will pave the way for both the ICC and Ten Sports to work in close partnership to replicate projects of this nature in other member countries in the near future. We wish everyone involved in this project the very best.Chairman of the interim committee of Sri Lanka Cricket Upali Dharmadasa added: "Sri Lanka Cricket is grateful to both ICC and Ten Sports for taking the initiative and developing this unique training programme. We are confident that the local umpires will benefit from this programme and we are grateful to ICC for choosing Sri Lanka as the location to run the pilot programme just prior to the first Test between Sri Lanka and Australia. SLC is committed to work with ICC and Ten Sports to find ways to improve the quality of umpiring among the local umpires by encouraging such programmes and trying to make it a regular feature.
