Umpire Anil Chaudhary nominated for ICC international panel

Umpire Anil Chaudhary has been nominated to the ICC's international panel of umpires by the BCCI. Vineet Kulkarni, S Ravi and C Shamsuddin, who were nominated last year, remain on the panel.

While four Indian umpires on the international panel are mandatory, there is currently no Indian on the elite panel, the ICC's premier set of umpires. Generally, two umpires from the elite panel stand in Test matches, while one elite-panel umpire and one international-panel umpire stand in limited-overs games.

Kulkarni and Ravi have been named under the on-field category, while Shamsuddin and Chaudhary will be off-field umpires. Chaudhary, 48, who is yet to officiate an international game, replaces Sudhir Asnani on the panel. The highest-profile games Chaudhary has stood in were IPL matches.

India's four nominees for the panel were picked at the BCCI's umpires sub-committee meeting in Bangalore on Thursday. BCCI vice-president Niranjan Shah, who chaired the meeting, said: "The general consensus was that the quality of umpires here in India has steadily improved ever since we brought in the review-system over the last four to five years. We were supposed to recommend four umpires to the ICC international panel and we decided to back Ravi and Vineet Kulkarni for on-field and Shamsuddin and Anil Chaudhary for off-field."