Richard Kettleborough is proud to follow in the footsteps of the legendary David Shepherd, someone he admired at the start of his umpiring career in the late 1990s, when he stands in the World Cup final tomorrow.
Aged 42, Kettleborough will work alongside fellow on-field umpire Kumar Dharmasena of Sri Lanka as co-hosts Australia and New Zealand contest the highest prize in limited-overs cricket at a packed Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Kettleborough has richly merited his appointment, having for the last two years won the David Shepherd Trophy for International Cricket Council umpire of the year.
Those accolades of course mean the former Middlesex and Yorkshire batsman has plenty experience on the big stage, including last year’s World Twenty20 final when Sri Lanka beat India in Dhaka.
In this tournament Kettleborough has stood in several high-profile matches, including the India-Pakistan group game, the New Zealand-West Indies quarter-final and the Australia-India semi-final.
Speaking of the honour bestowed on himself and Dharmasena, who will become the first person to both play and officiate in a World Cup final, Kettleborough told ecb.co.uk that tomorrow will be “the pinnacle of our careers”.
The Yorkshireman has some way to go to fully emulate the late Shepherd, famous for his on-field superstitions, who stood in three consecutive World Cup finals in 1996, when Dharmasena played, 1999 and 2003.
But on the eve of his first 50-over showpiece Kettleborough said: “These are the things you work for.
“When I started umpiring in 2002 with the ECB, you look across the room and sit with people like Shep who have been involved in World Cup finals, and it’s one of my ambitions to do that.
“I was lucky last year to do the Twenty20 world final, and tomorrow is a huge honour to be appointed to this game.”
Kettleborough’s journey into umpiring started towards the end of his professional playing career, which reached completion when he was released by Middlesex in 1999.
While he continued playing in Yorkshire club cricket as his umpiring progressed, he was appointed to the ECB reserve list in 2002 and at the end of 2005 graduated to the first-class list.
Kettleborough joined the ICC panel in 2008 and made his international umpiring debut in a Twenty20 between England and Australia in 2009. He was promoted to the elite panel after the 2011 World Cup.
“I started a lot earlier than most people start really. A lot of young umpires have started over the last 10-15 years and I was probably the first of that lot,” he explained.
“I was 28 years old when I did my first first-class game and I imagine I will probably be the youngest bloke to umpire a World Cup final at just 42.
“I made a career decision back in 1999 that this is what I wanted to do and thankfully so far it’s worked out pretty well.”
Kettleborough knows the eyes of the cricketing world will be on him tomorrow, but is taking the game in his stride and preparing for it like any other.
One challenge he will face is detecting faint edges amid the noise created by a capacity crowd, although he had practice at the MCG by umpiring in the India-South Africa clash in front of around 86,876 people.
“We’re well communicated with the technology we use, but out there in the middle hearing little nicks and things like that can be very difficult with a very noisy crowd in,” he admitted.
When he and Dharmasena require assistance tomorrow, they can call on a countryman each in Ian Gould and Ranjan Madugalle respectively, who form the off-field team along with South African Marais Erasmus.
Gould, who umpired the Bangladesh-India quarter-final and New Zealand-South Africa semi, is fourth umpire tomorrow. He and Kettleborough make up a quartet of English umpires involved in the knockout stages along with Nigel Llong, who stood in the Sri Lanka-South Africa last-eight clash, and Richard Illingworth, who was video official in the Australia-Pakistan match.
“It’s a great advertisement for English umpires,” Kettleborough reflected. “We’re very fortunate in England that, with the ECB, ever since we started we’ve been well looked after, well supported.”
Kettleborough, who says “tomorrow will cap a good few years off”, mentioned several people who have helped him on his way but reserved particular praise for “a couple of people really started me off in umpiring”.
“Bernie Jarvis – he was the guy who took me through all my law exams in ’99 – and John Hampshire, the ex-first-class umpire and international umpire, who was really the guy who pointed me in the direction of umpiring,” he said.
“Those guys were a major influence and a major help right at the start of my career.”