The ICC has announced that former Australia team manager Steve Bernard
has been appointed to the role of ICC Regional Referee for the East-Asia
Pacific (EAP) region. The job will involve acting as referee for a wide
range of development and women's internationals and tournaments
throughout the region.Mr Bernard was the preferred candidate due to his broad cricketing
knowledge coupled with his vast experience managing players, coaches and
other team support staff. As a player, he was a successful right-arm
fast bowler who represented New South Wales in first-class cricket from
1970 to 1978.He was a New South Wales selector from 1983 to 1995 and a national
selector from 1993 until 1998 when he took over as the manager of the
Australia team, a role he fulfilled until retiring earlier this year."I'm honoured to have been chosen to work in this role," said Mr
Bernard. "I'm excited to be able to contribute to the game of cricket in
this manner, particularly focusing on developing the game."I look forward to working with the ICC, and the stakeholders of the game within the EAP region," he said.The role of regional referee is to act as tournament referee for ICC
regional tournaments and ICC World Cricket League events; remote referee
for women's international matches and ICC Intercontinental Cup matches;
and match referee for ODIs and T20Is involving Associate and Affiliate
teams.The EAP region includes Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Japan, Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Indonesia, Philippines, Samoa, South
Korea and Tonga.ICC Global Development Manager Tim Anderson said: "We welcome Steve to
this important role and with his vast experience of cricket we have no
doubt he will be an excellent referee. We were presented with an
outstanding list of candidates and although we had a difficult job
deciding, there is no doubt we have the right person for the role."It was encouraging to see the quality of candidates received for what
is a part-time and essentially volunteer role. It is great for the ICC
and for the development of cricket in the EAP region to have someone of
Steve's calibre involved.Mr Bernard joins the ICC Regional Referee Panel which now consists of:
Dev Govindjee (Africa)Adrian Griffith (Americas)
Graeme La Brooy (Asia)
Steve Bernard (EAP)
David Jukes (Europe)
