LUCKNOW, July 4 -- Shivakant Shukla has always been an achiever for Uttar Pradesh in domestic cricket. His first big occasion was the catch of Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar during the Ranji Trophy final at Hyderabad and there was a record of scoring an unbeaten 178 against Tamil Nadu in another Ranji Trophy semi-final at Nagpur while batting for 821 minutes. In the final, by the time he got out for 99, he had spent more than 20 hours on the wicket between dismissals. But Shukla had scored only two centuries in 28 previous first-class matches. That he kept getting chances to play for Uttar Pradesh was a minor miracle. On Thursday, Prayagraj's Shukla achieved a major milestone, first in his non-playing career, topping the match referee exam of the Board of Control for Cricket in India as the former left-hand opener finished top amongst 62 candidates with 84.5% marks, which included 42 in the written exam. Vidarbha's Soniya Rajoriya (83.5) and Nama Khobragade (81.5) finished second and third, respectively. "I didn't expect this to happen. I was sure of qualifying for the exam as I had done my homework well. It's like a dream come true and feeling excited as it's the best-ever success of my non-playing career," Shukla told HT on Thursday. With Shukla's qualifying for the match referee for the domestic matches, he becomes the fourth person from Uttar Pradesh for this job in the cricket history as Sunil Chaturvedi (Kanpur, now retired), Rohit Prakash (Prayagraj) and Parvinder Singh (Noida). In reality, Shukla would have not appeared in the match referee exams had the Uttar Pradesh Cricket Association given him his due. Even after passing the Level 2 exam of cricket coaching with distinction in 2021, he was never considered for the coaching job. This, however, frustrated him and being a cricketer of Indian Railways, he became chief selector of Railways and appeared in the match referee exam on behalf of Railways. "I kept trying hard for cricket coaching even for the junior sides in Uttar Pradesh, but didn't get a chance so I decided to go for the match referee exam on behalf of the Railways. I am thankful to Railways bosses, who identified my qualities for such a prestigious exam of cricket in India," said Shukla, 39, deputy chief ticket inspector with East Central Railway at Mughalsarai. However, Shukla accepted that for good preparation for the match referee exam, he was in constant touch with his two colleagues Parvinder Singh and Tanmay Srivastava in Uttar Pradesh, and they gave staunch support to him. About his public speaking segment during the exam where he fetched seven points out of 10, Shiva was given the task of handling an under-16 cricketer, who committed some offence during the match. "It was extempore as I had just two minutes to prepare, but I was ready for this as my friends had already told me about such a quick situation and by the grace of god I handled it well," said Shukla, adding, "In fact as a match referee, your perspective for the game changes as in a match you can't miss even a single moment of the game." During his 15 years of domestic career, Shukla scored 4,198 runs in as many as 85 first-class matches, scoring seven 100s and 19 half centuries. He also scored 909 runs in 35 List A matches, besides scoring 32 runs in five T20 games. "For me this achievement is as exciting as when I took the catch of Sachin Tendulkar at Hyderabad and that was fortunately a prize wicket of Bhuvneshwar Kumar as it was also Sachin's first duck in cricket history," he added. In umpires exam, Lucknow's Rohit Yadav could only qualify, whereas three others Arpit Yadav, Ravi Kaushik and Shahid Saifi failed to cross the hurdles....