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Following the meeting of the ICC Umpires' Sub-Committee, the Europe Region has had all four of its nominated Umpires selected to the ICC Associate & Affiliate Umpires Panel for 2005/6.

Niels Bagh (Denmark), Paul Baldwin (Germany), Trevor Henry (Ireland) and John Thallon (Scotland) are the successful Umpires who have been involved in the ICC European Development Program for several years. Members of the panel will be appointed to Regional ICC Intercontinental Cup matches globally throughout the year and 4-6 Umpires will be selected to officiate in the ICC Trophy in July 2005 and in the ICC U19 World Cup in 2006.

The ICC established a panel of Associate and Affiliate Umpires during 2004 and each region was asked to nominate their 4 best Umpires. These 20 Umpires officiated at the WCQS Division 2 tournament in Malaysia in February and following that tournament, the Umpires' Sub-Committee made their selection for the 12 man panel. The Sub-Committee consists of Darrell Hair, ICC Elite Umpire, Chris Kelly, ICC Umpires & Referees Manager, Graham Cooper, EDP Umpires Consultant and Chris Briers, ICC Development Operations Manager.

ICC European Development Manager Richard Holdsworth commented: "This is wonderful news for the four umpires and shows the strength of umpiring in European Associate and Affiliate countries. They deserve such credit and this is a fitting reward to their services to cricket thus far. As part of the ICC European Development Program over 500 umpires from 23 countries have been involved in the ECC Umpire Education Programme since 2001 and over 230 of these have qualified through the ECC & ACU&S system".