SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 22: The Jharkhand Badminton Association (JBA) is going to hold a special refresher course for badminton umpires of the state to strengthen their technical and practical knowledge of the game’s rules and regulations.
JBA General Secretary K Prabhakar Rao said that the workshop will be organized next month and two umpires of each district would be invited to it. Besides inculcating their technical information, a practical examination would be also conducted during the workshop.
“Jharkhand has a rich haul of quality badminton umpires and association would hold refreshing course for them time to time so that their umpiring standard could reach at par with Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and other states,” said Rao.
This special workshop keeps significance for the state umpires as Jharkhand will host the Under-13 National Badminton Championship for the first time this year.
When asked about the fact that general players and volunteers are seen officiating matches in registered badminton tournaments at the district level, the JBA general secretary said that it has not brought in his cognizance so far.
“Association would take action if such illegal practice is found. When we have a panel of national and state-level qualified umpires, there is no question of engaging other than them in a registered tournament,” he said.
In the last 10 years, six National Grade-2 level and 14 state level badminton umpires of Jharkhand have qualified in the examination to officiate the registered national and state championships.
Avinash Kumar Tiwari (Ranchi), Madhurendra Kumar (Maithon Dhanbad), Alok Singh (Ramgarh), Anurag Kumar (Dumka), Wasim Akram (Ranchi) and Barun Kumar (Jamshedpur)- all 2013 batch National Grade-2 level umpire and have the credit of officiating over 500 national and state championship matches.
A senior office-bearer of JBA said that Jharkhand’s umpires have got highly appreciation from famous umpires of the country for their error-free officiating and quick decision on the court in the crucial match.
The pool of state-level umpires in Jharkhand is also considered very strong.
Jagrit Pandey, Monika Kumari, Smriti Patel (all Jamshedpur), Anjola Amulya, Uma Rani Palit, Sanju Kumar (all Ranchi), Ajit Rana, Arun Kumar, Laxman Rajak (all Latehar), Abhishek Kumar (Dhanbad), Sudhanshu Shekhar, Madhusudan Murmu (all Dumka) and Ravi Kumar (Deoghar) are billed as promising umpires to reach national and international level.
