Top 5 Cricket officials to emerge from Sri Lanka

#4 Asoka De Silva

De Silva came under scrutiny for his decisions in the 2011 ICC WC

Ellawalakankanamge Asoka Ranjit De Silva, also known as Asoka De Silva was the first Sri Lankan umpire to feature on the ICC Elite Umpires Panel. He is the most widely capped Sri Lankan umpire having umpired 49 tests and over a 100 One Day Internationals. He was frequently chosen to be the umpire for matches between the top test playing nations.

He was a part of the “Elite Panel” for 2 years between 2002 and 2004. He was part of the panel in 2008 after it expanded to incorporate 12 members. He started off as a player for the Sri Lankan cricket team in a career which spanned over 8 years, featured in 10 Test matches and 28 ODI’s in this time.

His debut as an umpire came in 1999 when he umpired the ODI between Sri Lanka and Australia at Galle. After many years of successful umpiring, his career was brought to a standstill when he faced a lot of criticism for his decision making during the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011. Due to this, he was not allowed to officiate in a couple of key group games that he was originally supposed to officiate.

Unlike the cricket team, the umpire from Sri Lanka had a World Cup to forget. Several of his decisions were overturned by the DRS: out of the 7 decisions which were challenged, only 3 of them stood. Despite the problems he faced a few years ago, Asoka De Silva will always be remembered as one of the greatest umpires to come out of Sri Lanka.