CRICKET - Umpire scores `safari' chance

Few complain when Tim Parlane gives a cricketer out in Whangarei club cricket.
Northland's top umpire, one of just 10 on NZ Cricket's First Class Board, has just been rewarded for his diligence behind the stumps with an African "safari" at the end of the season.
The Maungatapere man has been named as this season's NZC South African exchange umpire. The position gives an umpire generally considered to be on the rise a taste of international umpiring.
"It's a big honour because its seen as a kind of prize of sorts for the new boys coming on."
Apart from sightseeing with his wife, Parlane will adjudicate two first-class games when he travels to South Africa in March.
Originally from Devonport, Parlane gave up playing rugby and cricket at 24 to concentrate on his new job as a sharemilker near Wellsford.
"I just couldn't afford to get injured and didn't have any time to spare anyway."
It wasn't until his son Blair, who now plays for Onerahi-Central premiers, needed a coach about 10 years ago that Parlane came back to the game.
"Basically I started umpiring because I was coaching the kids and I found myself out in the middle and then I thought I'd give senior cricket a go as well."
As a first-class umpire, he receives a retainer from NZC as well as a contract for 40 umpiring days over the season.
"I earn about $250 a day for a first-class match as well as the retainer, which varies from umpire to umpire, but usually end up doing more days than I'm contracted for," he said.
He umpired 75 days last season, the highest number on the first-class panel. The extra days come about because of the need to cover for illness and unavailability of top umpires such as Billy Bowden and Tony Hill, who have international duties.
Parlane is very much a new boy on the first-class panel but he reckons experience helps when the pressure is on: "Guys who have done 80-odd first-class games seem to know how to handle themselves a bit better than someone like myself, who has done about 15 or 16."
He would like to think he has a chance of some day being selected for the international panel.
"Of course you would hope that you might make it but it just depends how you go, and how my boss Brian Aldridge decides how you're going, that's just how it works out," he said.