Billy Doctrove

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Billy Raymond Doctrove (born 3 July 1955, Marigot, Dominica, Windward Islands) is an international cricket umpire. He umpired his first one-day international in April 1998 in a match between the West Indies and England at Kingstown, St Vincent. His first Test match was between the West Indies and Pakistan at St John's, Antigua in May 2000. Between 2002 and 2006 he was on the Emirates International Panel of ICC Umpires, and officiated in a great number of one-day internationals and the occasional Test match. In April 2006 he was rewarded for his consistently outstanding umpiring with a promotion to the ICC Elite umpire panel.

Doctrove (like friend and fellow West Indian umpire Steve Bucknor) was formerly a FIFA football (soccer) referee, and took charge of several international matches, including a World Cup qualifier between Guyana and Grenada in 1996. Despite retiring from international refereeing in 1997 to concentrate on cricket umpiring, he is still a keen follower of world and English football, supporting Liverpool F.C. and being nicknamed Toshack, after the ex-Liverpool striker. He is also President of the Dominican Football Referees Association, and President of the Windward Islands Cricket Umpires Association.

On 20 August 2006, the fourth day of the fourth test between England and Pakistan at The Oval, he was involved in controversy when he and fellow umpire Darrell Hair ruled that the Pakistani team had been involved in ball tampering. They awarded five penalty runs to England and offered them a replacement ball. Play continued until the tea break, but the Pakistani players refused to take the field thereafter. The umpires then left the field, gave a warning to the Pakistani players, and returned once more 15 minutes later. After waiting two more minutes the umpires removed the bails and declared England winners by forfeiture. The Pakistani team did take to the field 25 minutes later, but Hair and Doctrove refused to continue the game stating that the game had already ended with a Pakistani forfeiture the moment the bails were removed. The Test was abandoned following meetings between various officials from all parties, with Pakistan forfeiting the game.^[1] The match was followed by extensive media coverage and interest from all parts of the game, though this mostly bypassed Doctrove, focusing on Darrell Hair as the prime mover.