Bipin Dani
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has added four women cricketers in their match officials’ panels. All four women have been added to the ICC's Development panel.
Out of these four women cricketers, Nimali Perera and Dedunu de Silva will act as umpires, and Michelle Perera and Vanessa De Silva are the match-referees.
Incidentally, Dedunu de Silva and Vaneesa de Silva have played for the national team and other two- Nimali Perera and Michelle have played for the "A" team.
Janani Narayanan, Vrinda Rathi, G. S. Lakshmi (India), Shivani Mishra (India-born, now based in Qatar) are few of the other Asian women in the ICC panel of umpires and match referee.
They have been getting a chance to officiate in the men's matches.
More to learn
Officiating in the men's match will give more confidence, says Nimali Perera.
"Doing men's matches gives me more confidence. The game is so hard, we have to concentrate more in men's matches than in women's", she said.
"It is rather more difficult to officiate in a men's match but it gives us a lot of experience and a lot more to learn", she added.
Umpiring is rather harder than playing in a match. One wrong decision can change the entire match", she added.
