Ralph Gosein

Who was Ralph Gosein?

Ralph Godfrey Gosein was a West Indian cricket umpire. He umpired 25 Test matches between 1965 and 1978.

Gosein was born in Trinidad and educated at Fatima College. He began umpiring in 1954, having been encouraged to do so by his work colleague at the Chamber of Industry and Commerce, Eric Lee Kow. His first Test match came in 1965, at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, featuring the West Indies against Bobby Simpson's touring Australians.

With Douglas Sang Hue, he umpired the controversial fourth Test between the West Indies and India at Sabina Park, Jamaica in April 1976, in which Indian captain Bishen Bedi declared his team's first innings early in protest against sustained short pitched bowling from the West Indian pacemen, a barrage which the umpires did nothing to stem. When India were five down in their second innings, they had no further fit batsmen to take the crease, and West Indies won by 10 wickets inside four days.

He was involved in controversy at the end of his Test umpiring career when rioting caused the final 38 balls of play between the same two opponents to be lost in the fifth Test at Sabina Park, Jamaica in 1978, when West Indies were still 110 behind with only one wicket left in their second innings. Gosein turned down a request from the teams for the lost overs to be played on an extra, sixth, day, a decision later upheld by the MCC.