Dubai, Feb 2: England's Steve Davis and Sri Lanka's Kumar Dharmasena will be the on-field umpires during the inaugural match of the ICC Cricket World Cup between India and Bangladesh to be played in Mirpur on February 19.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) today named the umpires and match referees appointed for the warm-up and group stage matches for the February 19 to April 2 event to be jointly held by India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
"Steve Davis of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Umpires and Kumar Dharmasena of the Emirates International Panel of ICC Umpires and a former World Cup winner with Sri Lanka in 1996, will stand in the tournament opener which will be played between Bangladesh and India in Mirpur," the ICC said in a statement.
Billy Doctrove and Asad Rauf, both from the elite panel, will be the third and fourth umpires, respectively, while Ranjan Madugalle will be the match referee.
The 58-year-old Davis has so far umpired in 95 ODIs.
"If all goes according to plan, on March 9 in New Delhi he will become the 14th umpire to complete a century of ODIs when he will officiate in the India-Netherlands match," the ICC release said.
The 39-year-old Dharmasena, who played 31 Tests and 141 ODIs as on off-spinner for Sri Lanka from 1993-2004, has officiated in 19 ODIs to date.
In the ICC Cricket World Cup 1996, Dharmasena was Sri Lanka's second most successful bowler, along with Chaminda Vaas, with six wickets while the table was topped by Muttiah Muralitharan who took seven wickets.
In the final against Australia at Lahore, Dharmasena had match figures of 10-0-47-1 as Sri Lanka won by seven wickets with 22 balls to spare.
Besides Davis and Dharmasena, others who will share the on-field responsibilities in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 include ICC Umpire of the Year 2009 and 2010, Aleem Dar, Marais Erasmus, Ian Gould, Daryl Harper, Tony Hill, Asoka de Silva, four-time ICC Umpire of the Year Simon Taufel, Rod Tucker, Richard Kettleborough, Nigel Llong, Bruce Oxenford, Amish Saheba and Shahvir Tarapore.
The match referees for the event, besides Madugalle, are Chris Broad, Jeff Crowe, Roshan Mahanama and Andy Pycroft.
Appointments for the knock-out matches will be announced later.
