UNI
 
New Delhi, Sep 9: BCCI on Friday named Amish Saheba, Suresh Shastri and G A Pratap Kumar as India's three new nominations for the ICC panels for umpires.

The BCCI Umpires Sub-Committee met in Mumbai today and announced that the trio would replace A V Jayaprakash, K Hariharan and I Sivaram.

Pratap Kumar has been nominated for the third umpire's job.

'To improve the standard of umpiring in India...it was decided to encourage young blood and to weed out old umpires who are found incapable. From the umpires examination recently held in New Delhi, 29 umpires, on basis of merit, have been short-listed to appear for viva-voce and along with them some First Class Cricketers who has played more than 25 First Class matches will appear for viva-voce and practical examination. From these a panel of 20 to 25 umpires will be short listed for the BCCI panel,'' A BCCI statement said.

And in order to keep the BCCI panel in the best of condition, BCCI has decided to conduct medical examination of the umpires to combat issues like failing eyesight, hearing problem, stress and blood pressure.

"...the performance of the umpires who are found medically unfit or whose performance was not upto the mark during the last 5 to 10 years will not be included in the BCCI Panel,'' BCCI Joint Secretary M P Pandove said in the statement.