A Sri Lankan bowler has the following bowling figures — 69 wickets from 31 test matches at an average of 41 in the tests and 138 wickets from 141 matches at an average of 36 in the ODIs. Quite an ordinary bowler, you'd say, right? And he was indeed ordinary and when you have someone like Muttiah Muralitharan in the team, your team doesn't need an extra spinner. So, with the above bowling figures, you would be sidelined.
The person I am talking about is Kumar Dharmasena. He donned the Sri Lankan jersey for a decade and last played a game in 2004 after a pretty much ordinary career. In 2009, he stood as an umpire in his first international match and, soon after, came to be known as one of the brilliant umpires of the game of cricket! That was also during the era of umpires like Billy Bowden and Simon Taufel.