2500 cricketers, 104 teams, 80 umpires, 35 fixtures a week and a whole cadre of emerging young male and female cricketers, Singapore Cricket is riding an upswing of interest in the game. “It’s keeping us all very busy as we prepare for the new season, we have six divisions of cricket and a corporate league as well as school matches and friendlies which we take an interest in, as well as our international commitments,” says SCA General Manager Dharmichand Mulewa.

To manage all this activity and provide as ideal conditions as possible for the cricketing community, the Singapore Cricket Association (SCA) have been running courses for a new generation of scorers and now umpires. “We’re fortunate to have enough resources to hold the courses ourselves,” says Dharmichand, “this one was done by Sarika Prasad and MV Ramesh (who both stood at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games) using teaching aids provided by Cricket Australia.” According to the SCA, “new teaching methodologies were introduced in the course. Instead of the normal lecturing mode of teaching as in the past, in this course, participants were divided in to small groups, each group was asked to study a particular Law, come out with the salient features of that Law and make presentations to the class the following day.”

The 32 participants were current players in the main, who are looking for another avenue to maintain their involvement in the game. They will initially stand in school and Division 6 games prior to those with the most aptitude moving forward to ACC/SCA Level I certification and higher-level fixtures.

“It was quite an intense course for the participants but I’m glad to say that they came through it well, and I think that if they stick at it, Singapore can definitely benefit from these new umpires in the years ahead,” said Sarika.

Related: Singapore Cricket Profile

Filed March 3rd, 2011