Hit for 6: Foundation Training and International Umpiring
People often assume that being a doctor and being an international cricket umpire belong in separate parts of my life. One is associated with seriousness, responsibility and long days in hospital. The other tends to prompt a look of mild surprise, followed by questions about hats, television coverage and whether I ever get shouted at. The two roles overlap more than I expected; the link between them is not glamorous, it is human.
Medicine taught me very early that knowledge is only part of the job. The rest is judgement, communication and the ability to stay calm when other people are anxious, frustrated or waiting for you to make a decision. That has turned out to be just as useful on a cricket field as it is in a hospital. In both settings, people want clarity. They want to feel that the person in front of them is paying attention and is not being carried away by noise. Whether I am speaking to a patient, a colleague or a player, the skill is often the same: listen properly, take in what matters, and respond clearly.
Being a doctor has also made me more comfortable with uncertainty, which is not quite the same thing as liking it. In medicine, you almost never begin with perfect information. You assess, ask questions, weigh things up and make the best decision you can with what you have in front of you. Umpiring is similar in that it requires concentration, composure and the willingness to make a call without becoming hesitant or flustered. Neither role rewards panic, and neither leaves much room for ego.
What I have found most interesting is that both medicine and umpiring depend on more than technical competence. They both rely on how you carry yourself. You can be clear without being cold. You can be firm without making everything feel adversarial. In hospital, people remember not just what you said, but how you said it when they were vulnerable or worried. In sport, people notice whether you are consistent, fair and respectful. The decision matters, of course, but so does the manner.
The hardest part of combining medicine and international umpiring has never really been the work itself. It has been time, and more specifically the amount of planning required to create time where none seems to exist. Hospital rotas are electronic, which meant I spent time hunkered over a laptop and a phone, with several email threads and many WhatsApp messages.
When I was appointed to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, I felt proud, excited and then almost immediately aware that the real challenge would be making the logistics work. Before I could think about the cricket, I had to think about the rota. There were shifts to move, pieces of leave to coordinate and gaps to avoid creating. A lot of my preparation took place not on a pitch, but in my inbox.
That process made me appreciate just how much supportive colleagues matter. In medicine everyone is busy, and everyone is balancing something. So when people take the time to check dates, swap shifts or help cover part of the rota it is never a small thing. The support I received was practical, generous and very real. It looked like someone replying to an email quickly, guiding me to the right person who could help or sending a WhatsApp offering a swap. It looked like people making space for something that mattered to me, even when it meant extra effort for them.
I was very aware that if I wanted to make umpiring at that level possible, I had to be proactive. I could not just announce an opportunity and hope everything around me would fall neatly into place. I needed to ask early, keep track of what needed covering, follow up on arrangements and make it as easy as possible for others to help. There is a fine line between being organised and becoming the person everyone dreads hearing from because another rota related message has appeared on WhatsApp.
Looking back, what strikes me most is that the World Cup was not just a personal milestone.
Dr Anna Harris
F1, Wessex Foundation School
July 2026
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The views expressed in this article are those of the author’s, and do not necessarily reflect the official stance of the UKFPO.