Paul Ronald Reiffel (born 19 April 1966) is an Australian former

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

er who played in 35

Tests Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to: * Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities Arts and entertainment * ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film * ''Test'' (2014 film) ...

and 92

One Day International One Day International (ODI) is a format of cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of fifty overs, with the game lasting up to 7 hours. The World Cup, generally held every four yea ...

s (ODIs) from 1992 to 1999. He was part of Australia's victorious 1999 World Cup team. After retirement he became a

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

umpire. He is currently a member of the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires.

Playing career

Reiffel's career best bowling figures of 6/71 came at

Edgbaston Edgbaston () is a suburb of Birmingham, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It lies immediately south-west of Birmingham city centre, and was historically in Warwickshire. The Ward (electoral subdivision), wards of Edgbaston and Nort ...

in 1993. Throughout his career he took 104 wickets at 26.96 in 35 Tests, taking 5 or more

wicket In the sport of cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is either of the two sets of three Stump (cricket), stumps and two Bail (cricket), bails at each end of the Cricket pitch, pitch. The Fielding (cricket), fielding team's playe ...

s in an innings five times. An accurate bowler whose main attacking weapon was

seam bowling Seam bowling is a bowling (cricket), bowling technique in cricket, in which the ball is deliberately bowled to hit the ground on its Seam (sewing), seam, to cause a random deviation when it bounces. A bowler who uses this technique is called a se ...

, Reiffel was a more than handy batsman. While limited in his shotmaking ability, he had a solid defence. Two notable achievements in his Australian playing career were being members of the winning 1999 Cricket World Cup ODI team and the test side that defeated the West Indies during the 1994/95 Frank Worrell Trophy series. Reiffel was a Victorian cricket captain who was notorious for declaring a Victorian innings closed in 2001 with Michael Klinger on 99 not out.

Umpiring career

Reiffel made his first class umpiring debut in the 2004/2005 season after first umpiring in Melbourne grade cricket in 2002. Reiffel joined the

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National Umpire's Panel in the 2005/2006 season. In 2008, he became a member of the

International Cricket Council The International Cricket Council (ICC) is the global Sports governing body, governing body of cricket. It was founded as the Imperial Cricket Conference in 1909 by representatives from Australia, England, and South Africa. In 1965, the body wa ...

International Panel of ICC Umpires, the first former Australian Test cricketer to do so. He made his international on-field umpiring debut in a

match between Australia and New Zealand on 6 February 2009. He also umpired in both Tests of the West Indies-New Zealand Test Series in July–August 2012. In June 2013, Reiffel was elevated to the Elite Panel of ICC Umpires. He was selected as one of the twenty umpires to stand in matches during the

2015 Cricket World Cup The 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 11th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was jointly hosted by Aust ...

. On the first day of the fourth Test between India and England at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai, Reiffel was hit on the head by a throw from fielder Bhuvneshwar Kumar. He left the field and underwent precautionary tests, which showed that he had not suffered any major injuries. The

, however, decided against Reiffel taking any further part in the match. He was replaced by Marais Erasmus who was originally the third umpire. In April 2019, he was named as one of the sixteen umpires to stand in matches during the

2019 Cricket World Cup The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 12th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament was hosted bet ...

. In September 2023, he was named as one of the sixteen match officials for

2023 Cricket World Cup The 2023 ICC Men's Cricket World Cup was the 13th edition of the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament organized by the International Cricket Council (ICC). It was hosted from 5 October to 19 ...

Family

Reiffel's father, Ron Reiffel, played for the

Richmond Football Club The Richmond Football Club, nicknamed the Tigers or colloquially the Tiges, is a professional Australian rules football team competing in the Australian Football League (AFL). Founded in 1885 in the Melbourne suburb of Richmond, Victoria, Ric ...

. His grandfather, Lou Reiffel, was also an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

er and played for both

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and South Melbourne. Following the death of his father in December 2018, Reiffel pulled out of officiating during Sri Lanka's tour of New Zealand the following month.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Reiffel, Paul 1966 births Living people Australia One Day International cricketers Australia Test cricketers Australian cricket umpires Australian cricketers Australian One Day International cricket umpires Australian Test cricket umpires Australian Twenty20 International cricket umpires Cricketers at the 1996 Cricket World Cup Cricketers at the 1999 Cricket World Cup Cricketers from Melbourne Nottinghamshire cricketers Richmond cricketers Victoria cricketers People from Box Hill, Victoria 20th-century Australian sportsmen

Playing career

Umpiring career

Family

See also

References