16 years back Karnataka-born Sundaram Ravi made his First-class debut as an umpire. Since then he has hardly taken a step back in progressing up the ranks in umpiring whites. From officiating in domestic tournaments to major ICC events to now becoming only the second Indian after S Venkataraghavan to be inducted in the ICC Elite Panel of Umpires, 49-year old S Ravi has come a long way. In this chat with bcci.tv, he speaks about his moment of honour and can’t stop gushing about his ‘enthralling’ stint at Lord’s. Here’s more. Since the time you took up umpiring to this moment, did you ever feel you would see this day? I stood in my first First-class game in 1999 and it was a Ranji trophy game. Never did I think at that time that I would make it big one day. Early 2000 onwards I have been working hard on my umpiring skills and it has been a brilliant journey. Slowly I started officiating in big games and over the years have officiated in high profile games in major ICC tournaments. In 2011 the BCCI nominated me to the international panel. I recently officiated in the 2015 World Cup and it was a great experience in Australia and New Zealand. I feel consistent performances have led to where I am at the moment. How honoured do you feel being only the second Indian in that ICC Elite panel of umpires list? It is a great honour to join someone like S Venkataraghavan who has officiated in nearly 70 Test matches. His style of umpiring was phenomenal and now to belong in the same list as he did is a big thing for me. I would say this surely is the biggest highlight of my umpiring career. How has the BCCI helped you in the entire process? I would like to thank the BCCI for the support and what they have done for the umpires in general. The BCCI has gone out of their way to conduct workshops and umpiring programs for the betterment of the umpires. Workshops in the Nagpur academy have helped a great deal as well. Interactions with Simon Taufel, who is definitely right up there when it comes to umpiring, has also benefitted the skills in umpiring. How has the IPL helped you in becoming a better umpire and helped Indian umpires in general. The IPL is a good platform for Indian umpires to showcase their skills. It is the perfect stage to interact and work closely with elite umpires. More than anything it helps to build relationships with players and other match officials from around the world. Also, it prepares you for stern tests and puts you under pressure situations which test your umpiring skills to a great extent. These are the things which help you to perform better at the international stage as well. We talk a lot about players watching other players and learning, do umpires do the same? Have you done that? If so, who? We do observe umpiring styles and at the same time watch lot of match videos. We look at areas where we could have done better and try to learn from our mistakes. Every match you officiate is a learning experience and we as umpires look to better each performance. How was your experience during the England-New Zealand Test series? What would you compare that experience to? I must say it was an outstanding experience to be umpiring in a Lords’s Test. It was great. I didn’t realise the experience during the Test match since I was totally engrossed in the happenings of the game. It required a lot of concentration and it was testing in terms of conditions. The ball was moving and you had to have high levels of concentration and involvement in the game to get the decisions right. That series also helped in building relationships with other players. I didn’t realise all of this while standing at the Test match but once it was over I knew what an enthralling experience it was. Do you feel there will be added pressure on you now? How do you plan to counter it? I know there will be expectations but I am not going to think about the added pressure. I am going to take it one game at a time. Being added to that elite list won’t change the way I officiate in games. My approach towards every game will be the same and I will only look forward to better myself from here.