MUSCAT: Senior Oman umpire Rahul Asher has been nominated to officiate in the 50-over ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup, scheduled to be held in the West Indies from January 15 to February 5, 2022.
Sixteen teams will play a total of 48 matches in the 14th edition of the tournament which is being hosted by The Caribbean for the first time.
A regular at ICC and ACC competitions for quite some time now, Rahul is excited to be officiating at the highest level.
“Firstly, I would like to thank Oman Cricket and ICC for believing in me to officiate at such a higher level. I would also like to thank my mentors for shaping me to this level. It is indeed the biggest opportunity so far for me and it feels immensely proud to represent Oman in such a prestigious event. This is the platform every umpire wants to reach,” said Rahul.
When asked how did he prepare for such top level events and were they any different to standard cricket matches, he said one had to be a good person to be a good umpire.
“You must have good people skills and have good values. These are the things people can constantly improve upon. It is really important to do what you can and deliver the best possible performance on the day. I would not say we need to be thick-skinned, but we have to be mentally tough, deal with conflict, ability to empathise and relate to people of different backgrounds, cultures and personalities. None of those are related to decision-making, but there are a lot of life skills that are really important to be a good match official,” he explained.
What does he expect to learn from an event like an ICC World Cup?
“Like I mentioned before, Every match is a different game and one needs to work on it individually because there are always new things to learn in each game. However, officiating in an U-19 World Cup in a new place like West Indies, a major Test playing nation, will help me learn new things at such high standards. It feels great to know that our experience on the field is going to be utilised at the highest level,” added Rahul, who will be officiating in his 19th tournament since joining the ICC Development Panel.
