jack bannister
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Career focus<br />
World’s<br />
Best<br />
What does it take to<br />
become the world’s<br />
best umpire? Former<br />
Yorkshire and Middlesex<br />
batsman rIchard<br />
Kettleborough charts<br />
his rise to the top.<br />
My career in umpiring goes back to a<br />
chat I had with John Hampshire back<br />
in October 1999. I had just finished<br />
with Middlesex and although I was in<br />
discussions with another county I wasn’t<br />
sure whether to continue playing or look<br />
at something else.<br />
It was John who sowed the seed about<br />
umpiring so I did my ACU&S exams<br />
- two written papers and an oral exam -<br />
that winter.<br />
I owe a lot to Bernie Jarvis, who was<br />
an instructor in the Bassetlaw & District,<br />
for helping me. I used to go round to his<br />
house a couple of hours a week and we<br />
would go through the laws which helped<br />
me pass my exams.<br />
As a player you have very little idea<br />
about the laws of cricket so studying<br />
them was a real eye opener and it made<br />
me realise how much I needed to learn if I<br />
was going to make a career in umpiring.<br />
At that stage I hadn’t umpired any<br />
cricket but Yorkshire and Steve Oldham<br />
were very good in allowing me to stand<br />
in a lot of their academy and second<br />
team matches in 2000 and 2001.<br />
I played league cricket for Sheffield<br />
Collegiate as a pro at weekends but I<br />
got important experience umpiring in<br />
“I think as soon<br />
as I started<br />
umpiring it felt<br />
natural to me, in<br />
fact I felt more<br />
natural more<br />
confident than<br />
I ever was as a<br />
player. I backed<br />
my ability more"<br />
those Yorkshire matches midweek and<br />
at the end of 2001 I applied to go on<br />
the ECB reserve list and I got on the<br />
following season.<br />
I had four years on the reserve list<br />
because there were no retirements for<br />
three years then Richard Illingworth,<br />
Rob Bailey, Neil Bainton and myself all<br />
got on the full list at the end of 2005.<br />
When you are on the reserve list there<br />
is no job security. There is no contract,<br />
you are appointed on a year-by-year<br />
basis and you are under pressure to<br />
perform every day, just as you are on<br />
the full list.<br />
But those four years on the reserve<br />
list gave me a fantastic grounding. Apart<br />
from standing in county second team<br />
matches where you are the senior umpire<br />
you also umpire in tourist and university<br />
matches where you stand with umpires<br />
on the full panel.<br />
People like David Shepherd, Merv<br />
Kitchen, John Holder, John Hampshire,<br />
Alan Whitehead and Barrie Leadbeater<br />
were very supportive and helped me to<br />
understand what was required to be a<br />
first-class umpire.<br />
I think as soon as I started umpiring<br />
it felt natural to me, in fact I felt more<br />
natural more confident than I ever was<br />
as a player. I backed my ability more.<br />
The biggest challenge I found in<br />
my first two years on the full list was<br />
coping with the schedule. The county<br />
season is a hard grind both mentally<br />
and physically. Not only do you have<br />
to adapt from four day to one day or<br />
T20 cricket, but there is a lot of driving<br />
across the country.<br />
34 BtB issue 18 / thepca.co.uk
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