Dubai, Feb 7 : The International Cricket Council (ICC) is likely to appoint a four-member selection panel for the appointment of Elite Panel Umpires.

According to highly placed sources in the ICC, the panel members will be named before March this year.

The new panel will be responsible for the nomination of the Elite Panel Umpires List. The panel will also hike the present number of umpires from 10 to 12.

Till now the ICC management governed the appointment of the Elite Panel Umpires. However, perhaps to avoid controversies surrounding them, the ICC does not want repeats of the Darrell Hair and Steve Bucknor incidents in future.

The future of these two controversial umpires whose contracts expire in March this year will also rest with the new panel, the Dawn reported.

It was not known whether the postings of the new Elite Panel umpires and referees for the different series would be named by the new selectors or would be done by Doug Cowie, the 61-year-old ICC manager for umpires.

ANI