Wayne goes International

Cones of the World watch-out!

ICC names two Englishmen for second-tier referees’ panel.

PTG Editor.

Tuesday, 10 October 2017.

PTG 2271-11490.

Phil Whitticase and Wayne Noon, members of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s (ECB) Cricket Liaison Officer (CLO) group, have been added to the International Cricket Council’s (ICC) International Match Referee Panel (IMRP) for 2017-18 alongside exisiting member David Jukes.  Last week the ICC expanded what was the second-tier Regional Referees Panel (RRR) from six to twenty-six and gave it its new IMRP title, but left the two England spots as "to be confirmed" (PTG 2267-11472, 5 October 2017).  

The CLO's role on the county circuit includes supporting umpires, groundsmen, counties and the ECB by providing detailed reports of match activities, including disciplinary issues, tasks that in other countries and the international circuit that come under the jurisdiction of match referees.  Whitticase, 52, was appointed to what is now the CLO group ahead of the 2015 UK summer and Noon, 46, last February, and both worked in that role during the recently completed 2017 season (PTG 2044-10356, 10 February 2017).

Whitticase played 132 first class and 111 List A games for Leicestershire as a wicketkeeper over 12 seasons from 1984-95.  Upon retiring as a player, he qualified as a Level Four coach and remained with the club in a variety of roles before being named as head coach and academy director.  He left the club at the end of 2014, taking up the CLO position soon after (PTG 1522-7327, 16 February 2015).

Noon, another former 'keeper, featured in 92 first class, 121 List A and 4 Twenty20 fixtures for Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire over the years from 1998-2003, before that playing eight Under-19 Tests and seven One Day Internationals (ODI) at that level in both England and Australia.  He was Nottinghamshire’s assistant coach for more than a decade, leaving that spot at the end of last year to, said a report at the time, "pursue ambitions in elite coaching”, but took up the CLO role a couple of months later.

The ICC lists in its words, Whitticase “1st", Noon “2nd" and Jukes “3rd”, on the IMRP.  Dukes, 61, who has not played first class cricket made his International debut as a RRR member in 2009 and has gone on over the last eight years to oversee three womens’ Tests, 122 womens’ ODIs and 59 womens’ Twenty20 Internationals (T20I).  His record also includes 48 first class, 88 List A, 65 of them ODIs, and 101 T20I matches that featured ICC second-tier national sides.