New Delhi, Sep 4 (IANS): Former India cricketers Anil Kumble, Rahul Dravid and Javagal Srinath addressed various participants from across the country in a match referees seminar held at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru on Wednesday.

Dravid’s tenure as India's head coach ended with the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup win, while Kumble coached the national team from 2016 to 2017. Srinath, currently an ICC Match Referee, was also present at the seminar alongside ICC Elite Panel umpire Nitin Menon and Sujith Somasundar, the NCA Head of Education.

In a post through its social media accounts, where it posted pictures from the event, the BCCI said the seminar for match referees was to understand different perspectives. Srinath, a former India fast bowler, took 236 wickets in 67 Test matches and 315 wickets in 229 ODIs.

Last year, Srinath became the fourth match referee to reach the milestone of 250 ODIs after Ranjan Madugalle, Chris Broad and Jeff Crowe. He and Menon, along with Jayaraman Madanagopal, recently officiated in the 2024 Men’s T20 World Cup held in the USA and the West Indies from June 1-29.

The development comes ahead of India’s 2024/25 domestic cricket season commencing with the 61st edition of the Duleep Trophy, held in a red-ball tournament. For the first-round games starting on Thursday, Team A will face Team B at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, while Team C will face Team D at the Rural Development Trust Stadium in Anantapur, Andhra Pradesh.

The tournament features a new format, with four teams - A, B, C, and D - chosen by national selectors playing instead of the six zonal-based teams that competed in the previous editions.

Four teams will face each other once in a four-day first-class match as part of the round-robin group stage, with a total of six matches to be played. Each team will play three matches, and the tournament winner will be decided based on which team has the most points.