A proposal has been put before the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to place the umpires into two groups instead of the four currently in place, but the Apex Council, which met recently, has deferred a decision on the suggestion.

Members of the Umpires Committee - Amish Saheba, K Hariharan and Sudhir Asnani - have made an elaborate presentation on the need to restructure the grouping. However, the Apex Council members do not appear convinced to alter the existing system at the moment.

It is learnt that the BCCI is contemplating forming a committee before taking up any revision in the umpiring structure and its payment framework. "The matter has been kept in abeyance," a BCCI source told Cricbuzz. At present, there are 186 umpires in the BCCI fold in all, and they are divided into four groups: A+, A, B and C.

The Umpires Committee has contended that the quality of umpiring is often better from those in the lower groups and that postings for important games, like knockouts, are anyway made from these ranks because of the superior performances. At times, the committee pointed out, there have been instances of disparity in the fees of two officiating umpires in the same match because of variance in the payment structure across groups.

"In the previous years, normally the A+ and A group umpires were posted for important games and Knock out games. But in the last 2 seasons the performance of the majority of the umpires from these 2 groups were not up to the expected level and so the better performing umpires from B and C groups were posted to umpire in key matches and had performed as per expectations," the committee says in its note to the Apex Council, accessed by Cricbuzz.

The committee, further, explains the point: "There is a system of promotion and demotion in every group. At present A+ to A is 1, A to B is 2 and B to C is 5 and vice versa. But this system of promotion and demotion formula is not working very well because the non performing umpires in A+ and A are much higher, whereas the performing umpires in Group B and C are much better. So it is becoming difficult to fit in the performing umpires in the higher groups."