Ricky Ponting

Sydney: Australian captain Ricky Ponting says he wants the best umpires to officiate in Test cricket, irrespective of nationality.

Ponting and Australian cricket officials believe this year’s Ashes series here with England should be controlled by the top umpires on the ICC’s Elite panel, even if they are Australian or English.

But it’s a notion that does not have the support of the England and Wales Cricket Board.

“The ICC have a well-established principle of appointing neutral umpires for Test matches — it’s a process the ECB are extremely comfortable with,” a board spokesman said.

Under ICC guidelines, Test matches must be controlled by neutral umpires and it has been done since the formation of the Elite list of umpires in 2002, although one-day Internationals do still include one man put forward by the host board.

Ponting said he was less interested in neutral umpires than having the best.

“I’d just like to have the best umpires to umpire cricket around the world all the time,” Ponting told reporters on Monday.

“It’s the highest standard of cricket we play so we have to have the best umpires in those games.

“Whether that means they are Australian, or two Pakistanis, or two Englishmen, it doesn’t matter to me as long as they are doing a good job in the middle.”

Although there has been no formal approach to the ICC from Australia, Peter Young, Cricket Australia’s head of communications, says the top two men in the ICC ratings should be entrusted with making the decisions in the Ashes series.

That would mean two Australians being appointed, either top-ranked Simon Taufel, Daryl Harper or Darrell Hair, notwithstanding the current controversy over Pakistan’s forfeited fourth Test against England last week.

“If we lived in a perfect world it would be great if the forthcoming Ashes series, played between the best two teams in the world, could have the best umpires in the world officiating,” said Young. “At the moment the best umpires officiating are Australians.”