Padmanabhan happy making the tough decisions

Raj Padmanabhan, who passed his ECB umpiring exam in February, admits he's loving life making the tough decisions.

"I think I'm the first Indian umpire in the North West and maybe the rest of Ireland," he said.

"I was playing for the last eight seasons with St Johnston but now as I'm slowly getting on in years I thought that I should start concentrating on both scoring and umpiring.

"I always love to be a part of cricket and I'm really enjoying umpiring. I have done four matches so far and it has been a very good experience and luckily I have had good people like David Caldwell who was a colleague in the first match and then Kenny Magee, who's also from St Johnston, and they gave me tips on how to handle the pressure, but luckily so far the people have been nice.

"I don't know how things are at either international or senior one level, I believe the appealing is more intense and you have to really be on your game, but I'm still learning so we'll wait and see."

Having moved to Donegal in 2003, Padmanabhan acknowledged his first port of call was to try and find a cricket club.

"I have played cricket in four countries - India, New Zealand, Singapore and now Ireland - I was working in all those countries and wherever I go I try to find a club and play.

"I joined St Johnston in 2003, that is when a group of Indians came over to Letterkenny to work and we were known as the 'Letterkenny Indians', because we managed to form a second team and I became the captain of that team, I think I was the first Indian captain in St Johnston's 110 year history, so that's another first," he added.

Padmanabhan is hoping in years to come that he'll move up the umpiring ladder, but he's only taking one game at a time.

"Definitely I want to continue to progress, so my next level is Level 2 and I believe I need to have two years of practical experience in Level One, so hopefully in two years time I'll go for the next level.

"Because I'm not very old to be an umpire, I think I have a few more years, so as long as I my eye sight is good then I will try and keep on going higher and higher."