LAHORE: The International Cricket Council (ICC) on Wednesday announced an unchanged elite panel of umpires for the 2016-17 season with Pakistan’s lone representative Aleem Dar topping the list.

The list was announced following the annual review and selection process, an ICC press release stated.

“The decision was made by the ICC umpires selection panel consisting of chairman and ICC general manager – cricket, Geoff Allardice, ICC chief match referee Ranjan Madugalle, ex-England player, coach, umpire and now a commentator — David Lloyd, and Srinivas Venkataraghavan, the former India captain and international umpire,” it stated.

The panel consists of Aleem Dar, Kumar Dharmasena, Marais Erasmus, Chris Gaffaney, Ian Gould, Richard Illingworth, Richard Kettleborough, Nigel Llong, Bruce Oxenford, Sundaram Ravi, Paul Reiffel and Rod Tucker.

The ICC claims that the top umpires displayed their skills to an impressive degree in 2015-16 season by achieving a correct-decision percentage of 95.6 per cent in 220 matches across the three formats of Test, One-day International and T20.

In the 2014-15 season, ICC claims the correct decision percentage was 94 per cent and it is the highest since the Decision Review System was introduced in cricket in 2008.

Meanwhile, Allardice, said: “The elite panel has had an outstanding 12 months. Based on the individual performances of each umpire, as well as their ability to work together as a group, the selectors have decided that the same 12 umpires deserve to be rewarded with appointment to the elite panel for 2016-2017.

“The selectors also noted the improved performances of some of the umpires on the international panel and expect them to be pushing for selection on the elite panel in years to come.”

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2016