Reports: BCCI to introduce women umpires in second round of Ranji Trophy 2022-23
The proposed women trio namely Rathi and Venugopalan hail from Mumbai and Delhi while Narayanan is from Tamil Nadu.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is reportedly set to introduce women umpires in the upcoming Ranji Trophy. According to reports, three candidates Vrindha Rathi, Janani Narayanan and Gayathri Venugopalan have been shortlisted for the same.
Reportedly, the three of them will be officiating from the second-round onwards. However, they will not be available for the first round fixtures starting next week as all three of them will be busy umpiring in the India-Australia women’s T20I series.
Going ahead, women umpires will be getting to do Ranji Trophy games: BCCI official
“Going ahead, women umpires will be getting to do Ranji Trophy games. This is just a start. The BCCI has decided to give them the opportunity in the men’s game, too,” a BCCI official told The Indian Express.
The report further adds that Vrinda Rathi and Janani Narayanan have some amount of umpiring experience when it comes to men’s cricket competitions as the duo has officiated in under-23 boys’ CK Nayudu Trophy matches.
All three women’s match officials have etched their names in history books by becoming the first women umpires to officiate in senior men’s tournaments. Speaking about the three women umpires, Rathi and Venugopalan hail from Mumbai and Delhi while Narayanan is from Tamil Nadu. In fact, she had earlier worked as a software engineer.
Meanwhile, the Ranji Trophy 2022-2023 season is scheduled to get underway from December 13 onwards and it concludes on February 20, 2023. Madhya Pradesh are the defending champions. They had defeated the 41-time champions Mumbai earlier this year to lift their first-ever Ranji Trophy title.
This will be the 88th edition of the Ranji Trophy which will once again see 38 teams battling out for the most prestigious prize in Indian domestic cricket. Earlier, India’s newest middle-order superstar Suryakumar Yadav had confirmed that he would be making himself available for Mumbai’s second game against Hyderabad on December 20.
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