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While most cricket fans had their minds on which players would take the field for this year's Cup Match, a behind-the-scenes row has been brewing over the selection of the umpires.

The upshot of the impasse between the clubs and Bermudian officials is that this year's classic will have a dose of foreign glamour, with two of the world's top umpires donning the white coats.

In a move that caught the local association completely off guard, Somerset and St. George's revealed yesterday that they are flying in former Test match officials David Shepherd and Merv Kitchen from England to take charge of the match.

The stand-off began with a letter from the umpires association on July 19 indicating it would not be submitting a list of potential candidates for the classic until the clubs had met with them to discuss the code of conduct and offer certain assurances in the light of a series of on-pitch incidents last year.

Rather than taking the meeting the clubs called their bluff and in the words of Somerset president Richard Scott, pulled an ace from up their sleeves, by bringing in the two experienced Brits.

Scott said the clubs couldn't afford to wait and see if the local association would put forward umpires and had to act quickly to ensure the classic wasn't left without anyone to oversee it.

He said if the umpires had a beef they should have come to the clubs earlier and sorted it out.

"If they had an issue they should have come to us months ago. If you have a problem with your neighbour you don't wait for him to come to you.

"Now they are in left-field all by themselves looking for someone to feel sorry for them."

Randy Butler, head of the Bermuda Umpires Association, heard about the decision to bring in the Brits on the radio.

He's been left a bit miffed that the clubs didn't respond to the July 19 letter.

But he said that if the clubs had been trying to avoid tightening up the code of conduct then they would be in for a shock with Shepherd and Kitchen at the helm.

"Those guys won't take any nonsense. They are not going to lower their standards."

He said the association would have provided umpires for the classic; they had just wanted to be sure that the safety of officials and players was guaranteed and that the authority of the umpires would not be questioned. "We were told last year that the clubs would be meeting with the umpires after all the incidents to ensure that kind of thing didn't happen again. That hasn't happened."

He added that the match report from last year had highlighted a series of incidents. The report seemed to have been ignored and the players, in his view, went unpunished by the clubs who also failed to communicate with the umpires.

But he said he wasn't bitter over the introduction of foreign umpires and hoped that Kitchen and Shepherd, along with referee Clive Lloyd, could set a standard for Cup Match that would be enforced for years to come.[[In-content Ad]]

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