Pak umpire in hot spot, says ‘no pressure at all’

‘‘Yeh meri dil ki khwahish thi ki mein yahan aoon. Now that I have come, I want to give it my best shot. This was the only country left for me to officiate in. There is no pressure. I look at myself not as a Pakistani umpiring in India, but just as another umpire in a Test match,’’ Dar says.

The highlight of Dar’s short career as a top-flight umpire so far came earlier this year in the West Indies when he officiated, and watched, the match where Brian Lara hit his 400 not out. ‘‘I still have the ball with me off which he (Lara) scored his 400th run. My neck started paining watching him score all those fours and sixes…’’ said Dar, as he ruefully recalled that he gave Michael Vaughan out wrongly in the match.

A big fan of late Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana, Dar explains he was fida over his controversial countryman. ‘‘He gave very bold decisions,’’ Dar says with a smile.

The best part about Dar’s first year in the Elite Panel is that he represents a new generation of Pakistani umpires who are being respected and highly regarded across the board. Something that wasn’t the case with the generation preceding his, with names like Rana, Hayat and Javed Akhtar promising more wrongly raised fingers than not. Nadeem Ghauri and Asad Rauf (who Dar rates very highly) are some of the other young Pakistanis who have erased the memories of the past.

Explaining that wife Noshaba is the biggest asset he carries around, Dar gets a trifle emotional as he explains that the death of his seven-month-old daughter’s death has helped him cope with the strains of international cricket. ‘‘She died during the World Cup with a brain infection. Yet my wife and family did not let me know the news till it (WC) ended. They did not want it to affect my job,’’ says Dar with moist eyes.

Which is the perfect cue to lighten the mood, and round off the conversation with the topic of his resemblance to former Pakistani quick Waqar Younis. ‘‘My wife does tell me we look similar. But I am more handsome than him,’’ says Dar with the smile returning to his face.