Rudi Koertzen

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Rudi Koertzen
Born	March 26, 1949 (age 58) Knysna, South Africa
Nationality	South African
Tests Umpired	80
Years	1992-present
ODIs Umpired	168
Years	1992-present

Rudolf Eric Koertzen (born: March 26, 1949, Knysna, Cape Province ) otherwise known as Rudi Koertzen is an international cricket umpire.

A cricket enthusiast since his youth, Koertzen played league cricket and became an umpire in 1981. His "slow death" style of indicating that a batsman is out makes him at once recognisable anywhere in the cricket world.

He officiated his first One-day International match of South Africa v India at Port Elizabeth, 9th December 1992 and his first match as an umpire in a Test match came in the South Africa vs India series in Port Elizabeth, 26-29th December 1992, which was also the first series to see the use of television replays for assisting umpiring decisions.

He became a full-time ICC umpire in 1997, and was one of the original members of the Emirates ICC Elite umpire panel when it was founded in 2002. He is one of just three umpires from the original elite panel who have maintained their place (the others being Steve Bucknor and Daryl Harper). He has officiated more ODIs than anyone except David Shepherd, and became the second man to stand in 150 ODIs with the match between India and Pakistan at Abu Dhabi in April 2006. His professionalism has seen him through some controversial moments, especially in relation to being approached by people wishing to fix the results of matches in 1999. He is also highly regarded by the players; he was officially voted the top umpire in 2002, and was nominated for the Umpire of the Year award in 2005 and 2006, finishing 3rd on both occasions behind Simon Taufel, who won on both occasions, and Aleem Dar, who was second on both occasions.

He has been appointed to several high profile matches including India-Pakistan series and Ashes series (he was one of the umpires during the famous 2005 Ashes). In 2003 he was the third umpire in the Cricket World Cup final, and hopes that he may get to stand on-field in the final of the 2007 world cup in the West Indies, as that would probably be his last opportunity. He has however been the onfield umpire for the final of the Champions Trophy in both 2004 and 2006. He was also selected to umpire in the ICC SuperSeries (Australia v World XI) in 2005, along with Taufel, Dar and Darrell Hair. His goal is to umpire 100 tests and 200 ODIs before he retires.

[edit] Umpiring Statistics

	First	Last	Total
Tests	South Africa v India at Port Elizabeth, Dec 1992	Australia v England at Melbourne, Dec 2006	80
ODIs	South Africa v India at Port Elizabeth, Dec 1992	Bangladesh v New Zealand at Antigua, Apr 2007	169