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The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) has increased the monthly allowances of umpires and referees. Match officials in the Elite Panel will now receive PKR 120,000 along with an additional PKR 10,000, raising their total to PKR 130,000. Similarly, Supplementary Panel 1 officials will get PKR 100,000 plus an additional PKR 10,000, while Supplementary Panel 2 officials will receive PKR 90,000 plus PKR 10,000. The same increase applies to 10 referees in both the Elite and Supplementary Panels.
According to PCB officials, the purpose of this step is to encourage umpires and referees and further improve their performance so that quality officiating can be ensured in domestic and international cricket matches.
Along with the allowance hike, the board has also announced the new umpire panels after the annual review. However, this year no new umpire has been promoted to the Elite Panel. Instead, 12 umpires from last year’s Elite Panel have been demoted to Supplementary Panel 1. Ahsan Raza, who is also part of the ICC Elite Panel, will continue as an elite umpire.
The Elite Panel of Umpires now includes: Asif Yaqoob, Saqib Khan, Tariq Rasheed, Nasir Hussain, Rashid Riaz, Abdul Muqeet, Muhammad Sajid, Imranullah Aslam, Imran Javed, Ghulam Sarwar, Faisal Afridi, Kashif Sohail, Imtiaz Iqbal, Khalid Mehmood Sr., Zulfiqar Jan, and Farooq Ali Khan.
Meanwhile, several umpires have been demoted to Supplementary Panel 1, including: Ali Haider, Waleed Yaqoob, Majid Hussain, Qaiser Khan, Aslam Bareach, Ahmed Shahab, Rana Muhammad Arshad, Qaiser Waheed, and Muhammad Asif.
PCB sources clarified that three more umpires will soon be promoted from Supplementary Panel 2 to Panel 1. All umpires who were part of the Supplementary Panel last year have now been moved to Supplementary Panel 2.
The performance review of umpires was conducted by International Referee Ali Naqvi, Referee Bilal Khilji, and PCB’s Director of Domestic Cricket, Khurram Niazi. Based on their reports, the new panels were finalized.
