Daryl Harper

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Daryl Harper
Born	October 23, 1951 (age 55) Adelaide, South Australia
Nationality	Australian
Tests Umpired	63
Years	1998-present
ODIs Umpired	137
Years	1994-present

Daryl John Harper, (born 23 October 1951 in Adelaide, South Australia), is a current Australian Test cricket match umpire, from South Australia.

Harper, formerly a primary school teacher, played as a right-handed batsman in the Adelaide Grade cricket competition for the Teachers' College and East Torrens clubs. From here he started umpiring, and made his debut as a first-class umpire in 1987. After working his way up through the ranks he was appointed to his first one day international (ODI) in January 1994 - a fixture between New Zealand and South Africa at Perth. He continued to develop as an umpire, and was rewarded for impressive performances when, in November 1998, he was appointed to stand in his first test match - the 2nd Ashes Test at the WACA alongside umpire Venkat. He also stood in the exciting 4th test of that Ashes series at the MCG. He was subsequently promoted to the National Grid Panel of International Umpires, and began to stand in test matches away from Australia as the neutral umpire.

In 2002 the ICC intoduced a policy of two neutral umpires standing in each test match, and one neutral & one home umpire in ODIs. The neutral umpires were to be chosen from a new ICC Elite umpire panel, which would be made up of the top 8 - 10 umpires from around the world. Harper had the honour of being included in the original line up for this panel, being chosen in preference to fellow Australians Simon Taufel and Darrell Hair. He is one of just three umpires to have maintained their place on that panel, the others being Steve Bucknor and Rudi Koertzen, which is a testament to his umpiring ability. He also had the honour of umpiring the opening match of the 2003 Cricket World Cup in South Africa, and went on to stand in one of the semi-finals. Another landmark in his career was his 100th ODI, the match between Zimbabwe and New Zealand at Harare on August 31st 2005.

[edit] Umpiring Statistics

	First	Last	Total
Tests	Australia v England at Perth, Nov 1998	South Africa v India at Cape Town, Jan 2007	63
ODIs	South Africa v New Zealand at Perth, Jan 1994	South Africa v Sri Lanka at Guyana, Mar 2007	137