Nitin Menon, who showed remarkable accuracy in his debut series as an ICC Elite Panel umpire, feels pressure situations bring the best out of him and like cricketers, he too wants to make most of this purple patch.
The 37-year-old from Indore was inducted into the ICC elite panel of umpires in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic in June last year but had to wait till this February for his first major assignment.
With the pandemic forcing the ICC to appoint local umpires in a bilateral series, Menon officiated in all four Tests between India and England besides three of the five T20s and three ODIs. By the end of it, he was showered with accolades for his stellar performance.
Speaking about that gruelling experience, Menon, who is now quarantining in Chennai ahead of the IPL said: “The last two months have been great. It gives one great satisfaction when people notice and appreciate your good work. This series was always going to be a very challenging one because of the hype associated with it — a place in the World Test Championship final at stake, both teams coming back from impressive overseas wins, challenging pitches to officiate on.
“As for the white-ball series, it was between the two top-ranked teams in the world. Taking all these factors into consideration, I am pleased that we did well as an umpiring team,” said only third Indian in the ICC elite panel after S Venkataraghavan and S Ravi.
As world’s two top teams fought it out in the middle, Menon was an epitome of calmness. Out of the 40 referrals taken against his decisions during the series, only five were upheld. More importantly, only two decisions were overturned out of 35 referrals taken against his lbw decisions.
The DRS, especially the umpire’s call, once again was a big talking point through out the series.
In a normal scenario, Menon won’t get to officiate in back to back games over two months. So, how did he cope up with high pressure scenarios match after match?
“I believe umpiring is all about mental toughness. More the pressure better is the focus. If we can give our best performances when we are under pressure, that is the true reflection of how strong we are mentally.
“It’s not new for me to officiate in back-to-back matches, thanks to the amount of domestic cricket organised in India. Even in the IPL, we do around 14-16 games without a break, so all this experience has really helped me in this series. Like players, umpires also have form. I always feel that when in good form, I should do the maximum number of games without any break,” said Menon, who played two List A games for Madhya Pradesh and comes from a family of umpires.