Billy Raymond Doctrove (born 3 July 1955) is a Dominica former international football referee, but is best known as an international
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by str ...
umpire
An umpire is an official in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection.
The term derives from the Old French nonper, ''non'', "not" and ''per'', ...
.
Career as a FIFA referee
During his time as a referee Doctrove took charge of several international matches, including a
World Cup
A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...
qualifier between Guyana and Grenada in 1996. Despite retiring from international refereeing in 1997 he is still a keen follower of world and English football, supporting
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club based in Liverpool, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. Founded in 1892, the club joined the Football League the following year and has p ...
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.
Rise to international umpiring
After retiring from football refereeing in 1997 Doctrove was able to concentrate more on his career as a first-class umpire. In April 1998 the
West Indies Cricket Board
Cricket West Indies (CWI) is the governing body for cricket in the West Indies (a sporting confederation of over a dozen mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries and dependencies that once formed the British West Indies). It was originally ...
appointed Doctrove to his first One Day International (ODI), the match between West Indies and England at Kingstown, St. Vincent. In that match he stood alongside
Steve Bucknor
Stephen Anthony Bucknor, OJ (born 31 May 1946) is a Jamaican former international cricket umpire.
Bucknor umpired in a record 128 Test matches between 1989 and 2009, and also umpired in 181 One Day Internationals during this period, includi ...
.
He was appointed to his first
test match Test match in some sports refers to a sporting contest between national representative teams and may refer to:
* Test cricket
* Test match (indoor cricket)
* Test match (rugby union)
* Test match (rugby league)
* Test match (association football)
...
, the third test between West Indies and Pakistan at the
Antigua Recreation Ground
Antigua Recreation Ground is the national stadium of Antigua and Barbuda. It is located in St. John's, on the island of Antigua. The ground has been used by the West Indies cricket team and Antigua and Barbuda national football team. It had Tes ...
, in May 2000.
In 2002, he became a member of the
International Panel of ICC Umpires
The International Panel of ICC Umpires was established by the ICC in 1994 following trial in 1992/3, to ensure that one neutral umpire would stand in every Test match.2004 Champions Trophy, and the U19 World Cup in Sri Lanka in early 2006, where he stood in the final. In April 2006 he was promoted to the
Elite Panel of ICC Umpires
The Elite Panel of ICC Umpires is a panel of cricket umpires appointed by the International Cricket Council to officiate in Test matches and One Day Internationals around the world. The panel was first established in April 2002 when the ICC deci ...
. Doctrove was appointed to the final of the
2010 ICC World Twenty20
The 2010 ICC World Twenty20 was the third ICC World Twenty20 competition, an international Twenty20 cricket tournament that was held in the West Indies between 30 April and 16 May 2010. It was won by England, who defeated Australia in the fina ...
in the West Indies.
England vs Pakistan fourth test
On 20 August 2006, the fourth day of the fourth test between
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and
Pakistan
Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
at
The Oval
The Oval, currently known for sponsorship reasons as the Kia Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, located in the borough of Lambeth, in south London. The Oval has been the home ground of Surrey County Cricket Club since ...
, he and fellow umpire
Darrell Hair
Darrell Bruce Hair (born 30 September 1952) is an Australian former Test match cricket umpire, from New South Wales. He stood on the International panel of umpires from 2002 to 2003, before he, along with fellow Australian Simon Taufel, and Ne ...
ruled that the Pakistani team had been involved in ball tampering. They awarded five
penalty runs
In cricket, a penalty run is a type of extra. It is a run awarded to one team for various breaches of the Laws by the other team, generally related to unfair play or player conduct. Many of these penalties have been added since 2000. Penalties a ...
to England and offered them a replacement ball. Play continued until the tea break, but the Pakistani players refused to take the field thereafter. When the Pakistan team refused to return to the field the umpires removed the bails and declared England winners by forfeiture. The Pakistani team did take to the field 26 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.
International Umpiring statistics
As of 7 June 2012:
Retirement from professional umpiring
On 7 June 2012, Doctrove announced his retirement from all ICC umpiring roles due to a family bereavement back in his home country of Dominica. The 56-year-old stood in 38 Tests, 112 one-day internationals and 17 T20 internationals. In a statement, he said, "It has been an incredible 14 years for me as an international umpire and I've enjoyed every moment of it."