Umpiring is not a job that a lot of international cricketers take up after retirement. Most of them are interesting in broadcasting, coaching, or in cricket administration. There is not a long list of very successful international cricketers who later became umpires.
Here are the 5 international cricketers who turned umpires after hanging their playing kits:
#1 Paul Reiffel:
Paul Reiffel was a very talented all-rounder and could have played more games for Australia than he eventually ended up playing.
Reiffel played 35 Test matches and 92 ODIs for Australia, grabbing 104 and 106 wickets in the two formats respectively. The right-hander also scored 6 half-centuries for Australia in Test matches with the highest score of 79.
Reiffel is currently a part of ICC’s elite panel of umpires.
#2 Richard Illingworth:
Richard Illingworth was a left-arm spinner who was pretty handy with the bat as well, lower down the order. He was a part of the England XI which took the field in the final of the 1992 ODI World Cup against Pakistan.
Illingworth took 19 wickets in 9 Test matches and 30 wickets in 25 ODIs for England. The 56-year old is a very reputed umpire in international cricket at the moment. He was named ICC’s umpire of the year in 2019.
#3 Kumar Dharmasena:
Kumar Dharmasena was a genuine all-rounder in first-class cricket where he averaged more than 36 with the bat and just 20 with the ball, but he couldn’t do justice to his bowling talent at the international level for Sri Lanka.
In 31 Test matches that he played, Dharmasena just secured 69 wickets to his name at an average of 42.31. Even in the ODIs, the off-spinner averaged more than 36 runs per wicket.
Dharmasena, however, turned out to be a very successful international umpire. He stood in the World Cup final between England and New Zealand last year.
#4 Srinivas Venkataraghavan:
Srinivas Venkataraghavan was a part of the famous spin quartet of India which wreaked havoc in the 70s.
Venkataraghavan played more than 50 Test matches for India and took 156 wickets at an average of 36.11. He played 15 ODIs as well, but without too much success as he took just 5 wickets in those games at an average of more than 100.
Venakataraghavan later umpired in international cricket for more than a decade, from 1993 to 2004.
#5 Ian Gould:
Ian Gould was a wicket-keeper batsman who played close to 300 first-class games in the county circuit of England and also in the domestic circuit of New Zealand as an overseas professional.
The southpaw wasn’t able to earn a Test cap for England, but he got the opportunity to play 18 ODI games in which he scored 155 runs at an average of 12.91. Gould was umpiring in international cricket until last year.
