A woman, for the first time in cricket history, is officiating in a men’s Test match—Australia vs India at Sydney—and it’s a pathbreaking moment in the game’s 144-year annals.
Claire Polosak, 32, cut her teeth, so to say, in April last year when she officiated in the final match of the World Cricket League Division 2 between Namibia and Oman.
Earlier, in December 2018, she and Eloise Sheridan became the first women to officiate on the field together during a professional match in Australia when the Adelaide Strikers faced the Melbourne Stars in the WBBL.
In 2016, New Zealand’s Kathy Cross and Polosak became the first women umpires to officiate at a T20 World Cup when they were at the Women’s T20 World Cup in India. Polosak, who hails from New South Wales, was also part of the umpiring panel at the Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia last year in February-March.
Polosak is part of Cricket Australia’s supplementary umpire panel and the ICC development umpire panel. Her international umpiring career began in 2015 with appointment to the ICC women’s T20 qualifying tournament in Thailand, where she stood in eight matches including the final. In addition to her experience in the men’s game, Polosak has officiated in 17 women’s ODIs, with an additional three as third umpire, and 33 Women’s T20Is, with an additional five as third umpire.
Travel restrictions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in an all-Australian panel of officials, including match referees, for the four-Test series.
