Jeff Crowe. Photo / Getty Images

Jeff Crowe. Photo / Getty Images

Jeff Crowe gave up playing cricket because of a heckler at a social match (who yelled: "Hey, Crowe, you haven't got any better") but he is still at the top of the game as one of the world's elite referees.

"The only place I play cricket now is at the makeshift oval on cousin Russell's [actor Russell Crowe] farm in Coffs Harbour," says Crowe. "I realised when that heckler yelled that it was time to give it a miss."

But while he has scaled back as a player, his lifestyle has perhaps scaled even greater heights on the back of a career as one of seven ICC (International Cricket Council) elite panel referees.

The former Auckland and New Zealand cricket captain, married to Lara and father of Oscar (2) and Henry (1) has lived in Florida since 2004 and regularly sets across the world on refereeing duties.

In his five years of refereeing so far, Crowe has overseen 35 test matches, including the first three in this Ashes series, 123 one day internationals and 11 Twenty20 internationals.

"International cricket referee" sounds like one of those tough jobs - like being caretaker of the Great Barrier Reef's islands, personal pilot to the Rolling Stones, caddie to Tiger Woods or the chef in charge of catering on a luxury yacht.

But the role, while mostly smooth sailing, carries weight and sometimes Crowe finds himself in the eye of a storm.

His darkest refereeing hour came during the final of the 2007 World Cup between Australia and Sri Lanka at Sabina Park, Kingston in the West Indies. The final had seemingly been wrapped up by the Australian team after bad light had stopped play in the rain-affected match with the minimum number of overs bowled.

However, the match control panel, consisting of Crowe, as match referee, and four umpires, made a ruling that meant the game continued in conditions so gloomy an errant fan could have run on to the pitch, taken a stump out of the ground and no one would have been any the wiser.

Crowe was quick to take the blame for the situation and his honesty was refreshing and brave, considering the media were baying for his blood.

"While it is never easy to take criticism, I think it is right that there are consequences for our actions as match officials," he told a media scrum after the debacle.

The two onfield umpires, Steve Bucknor and Aleem Dar, the reserve umpires Rudi Koertzen and Billy Bowden, and Crowe, were then all suspended for the duration of the next ICC event, the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa.

Crowe defines his overall role as: "I am the eyes and ears of the ICC at each international match. The ICC regards us refs as the match CEO and a main role is to manage the umpires and get them in the best space to be able to deliver their highest quality decision making.