Hair should be removed from the Elite Panel altogehter. The only reason he’s not officiating at the Champions Trophy is because the BCCI put its food down and said don’t send him. As I’ve said on my blog, implying security concerns is a feeble excuse.

Anyway, love your blog guys. Offers me a different perspective on life errr.. cricket at least.

As often, Jonathan Agnew, eschewing the more sensational approach of some others, gets to the nub of the matter in his measured manner. Selected quotations:

On the refusal to play:

“This is a serious issue, and is fundamental to all sport. It is simply unforgivable for any sportsman to refuse to play because he objects to a decision.”

On the ICC’s credibility:

“The ICC has already said that it will not be dictated to when it comes to appointing umpires. But the fact is that the ICC is made up of the Test-playing countries, and if Pakistan and India can gather enough support, they will get their way.”

On the role of the umpire:

“The role and, particularly, the authority of the umpire has taken another knock. It is the fundamental principle of all sport that the umpire’s word is final. He is fallible, but without that respect, anarchy rules. As these events prove, we have moved closer in that direction.”

Full article here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tms/2006/09/inzamam_will_celebrate_despite_1.shtml

Rajeev, I read your piece with care and interest. I think what this mess shows is that racism, or accusations of racism to be more accurate, or innuendos about racism to be more accurate still, is the emotion that dares not speak its name, to paraphrase the haze that used to swirl around another (once) unspeakable anathema, homosexuality.

For as long as it is considered “not cricket” to actually spell these things out, thrash it out around a table (and agree that most talk of racism is errant nonsense), then cloudy accusations of racism will arise every time a white umpire, or his West Indian lackeys!, gives Tendulkar or Inzi out when the ball brushes his sleeve. Of course, all the times when a) they weren’t given out when it brushed their GLOVE and b) other players were given out when it brushed THEIR sleeves will not be adduced as evidence.

It is indeed a sad, sad thing that is happening to cricket, as old scores are settled by people who perhaps know a fair bit about revenge but very little about what makes cricket the game it is. It seems that all the ICC’s work in setting up an Elite Panel of Umpires (and most of these fellows are either damned good already, or have the potential to be damned good in the near future) could go for nought, as ICC committee-men seek to get involved according to their own non-cricketing agendas, as the appeal cynically to the lowest common denominator, i.e. the not-very-clued-up-laws-wise masses in their own countries, who like the plebs in ancient Rome are easily swayed by irrational, jingoistic rubbish. And I’m not just talking about the citizens of Mumbai and Lahore. The Sun readers in England are just as gullible if fed this garbage.

Nice piece by Gideon Haigh about Darrell Hair:

http://content-www3.cricinfo.com/ci/content/story/260798.html?CMP=OTC-RSS

And Auvergne, agree with all you say.

I guess the ICC don’t want any more Hair controversy mucking up their nice little money-making tournament.

Thanks for that link, Kathy - I’m more of a telegraph.online man myself, so often miss out on the “liberal” stuff!

Besides supporting the law-of-averages theory (i.e. given a sufficient number of matches, umpires will make more or less the same number of mistakes against all the major Test playing nations), at the cost of the pathetic, puerile and totally non-empirical racist-conspiracy theory, Haigh’s article includes a quote that struck close to home:

‘”You’re messing with my career, Darrell,” complained Mark Ramprakash after Hair had given him out caught at the wicket at Lord’s eight years ago.’

Aa an umpire standing in matches where decent players play (last year a fellow with 41 Tests for England was in the same team as a member of Ireland’s winning side against the West Indies a few years back), you come across a variety of methods used to “work on” umpires - that is, to soften them up so that under pressure they give YOU or your side a favourable decision.

There are the pally ones, who chat to you at square leg, the ones who act as self-appointed umpire assessors (”You’ve improved since last year”), the jokers, the ones who say to you before the match “You’re not going to give me out again today, are you?”, and the contemptuous ones, who will never talk to you, on or off the field.

Then you’ve got the ex-players who’ll give you the benefit of their opinion after a few beers, summing up your years of experience with a one-line assessment, “You’re a giver” (as opposed no a “non-giver”). I don’t respond to this, especially when the-ex player has a son, who I might have given out once. That’s the thing - they remember, but the umpire forgets. And moves on. The best piece of advice Taufel gives is so simple as to perhaps be meaningless to anyone who hasn’t actually had to umpire when the pressure’s on: “The here and now. Stay in the here and now. Concentrate on this ball. Forget that comment. Forget the poor decision. Clear your mind. Get the next one right. Don’t even up. You’re a good umpire.”

Back to messing with a player’s career. Interestingly, when asked to say something at ACC umpire courses, as a participator, not trainer, I emphasise, something I often say is that the umpire has the power to wreck a player’s career, and that I never forget that when I umpire. (In many ways, umpiring is a poor substiute for playing for me - and while I don’t feel entirely comfortable with the implications of the contrast between “umpires’ umpire” and “players’ umpire”, it’s never a bad thing for an umpire to constantly remind himself of the power he has, Or indeed to play the occasional match - last year I was given out caught behind when the bat hit the ground, and it’s not easy to just walk off. But I did - but not without a word with the slip cordon, who knew it wasn’t out!)

Last year, I gave an “Anglo-Indian” fellow (the similarity with Ramps is rather uncanny - perhaps they have the same way of working on umpires) out LBW. He is often given out LBW because of the way he plays (not getting outside the line like a lot of pros do). At the end of the game he says that he had hit the ball, and that he had been given out in similar circumstances the previous week, and that he now feared for his place in the national side. I listened, and then told him that he had been hit in front and that I had not seen or heard any deflection off the bat before impact. “Well,” he said, “I only feathered it. Could hardly feel it myself.”

I smiled. I think deep down he understood that until they introduced snickometers at our matches, the type of decision he got was the type that he had to live with. What else would he suggest? That the players umpire themselves?

I hope this little digression helps give people who are not qualified umpires an idea of what “input” we receive, and how important it is that we apply ALL the Laws and playing conditions that our paymasters come up with, and apply them equally. Of all the comments that have been generated by this mess, the lawyer’s (Gay?) question to Hair stands out to me: “Don’t you think you were over-legalistic in applying the laws?” While Hair’s response was good (”Thought you’d know all about that, mate!”), I was reminded of a complaint that was once launched against one of our best umpires by a team that had lost a final. No less than three times did they accuse this official of being “too zealous in applying the rules of the competition”! The complaint was ultimately thrown out, but not before the umpire had been “investigated”.

Basically, you support umpiring decisions - when they are made on a reasonable basis - or you will pay the price, and we will be back in the dark ages of umpiring standards seen just two decades ago. Alternatively, you rewrite the Law book, letting players work on the ball to their heart’s content, damage the pitch, waste time when it’s getting dark, talk as the bowler’s coming in, etc. etc. But Speed and his cronies cannot have it both ways. If you lay down in enormous detail steps that umpires MUST take in specific circumstances, and encase it all in something touch-feely called the Spirit of Cricket, then don’t be surprised when the best umpires, the ones that test themselves each month on online quizzes (as Taufel and Hair do, as members of NSWCA), and spend hours before each match going through the Laws and Playing Conditions, take you at your word.

Hair would only umpire Lee and McGrath in State matches. As I recall from the Haigh article, he’s aggrieved his fellow-countrymen in State matches, as well as deciding a Test against them in the 90s, when he gave a decision that the TV showed was wrong. So, by your logic, Hair’s a self-hating Australian.

Not as bad, though, as David Shepherd, of course, who not only watches Fox News, but also showed beyond all doubt that he was a inverse-racist in 2001, when he continued to give England players out off clear No Balls by Pakistani bowlers, EVEN after he had been informed by the third umpire at the interval that the bowlers - slow bowlers! - were overstepping.

That the ICC let Shep continue umpiring until he retired at 65 shows beyond all doubt whatsoever the pro-Pakistani bias of the ICC.

Hair got the Law wrong with regard to Inzi and he knows that. It’s this tendency towards being a human being that keeps him going back to take the NSWCA’s online quizzes. He recognises, as do many of us, that it is part of our nature to make mistakes, and that at the heart of the umpire’s fucntion is error elimination. To make as few mistakes as possible. They’ve got it down to about 95%. Only 5% more to match their armchair critics.

The instances that you have described are those of mistakes. A mistake, for example, can be made in Mathematics if a question asked is 4*2 and when one sees 4 and 2 one assumes the answer to be 6. That is a mistake because if one is shown the question when one is not in a hurry one will correctly state the answer as 8. However, Mr. Hair did not make a mistake, he accused Pakistan of ball tampering. This he did from two things 1) the ball had irregular marks 2) Pakistanis are cheaters. The latter is his belief which he assumes to be knowledge. He connected these two beliefs and came to a correct conclusion. What I am trying to say is that if the first belief was existed in an occassion where a different team was present a different conclusion would have reached for the absence of the second belief. I am not blaming Mr. Hair for having this belief because I can see where it can stem from.

Auvernge stated that Hair was only human.Accepted.
But,so is Inzy.
Now I know that the umpires’decision is almost sacrosant in say cricket and tennis[Jimmy Mac and all that]as is it supposed to be the referee’s in Association and Rugby football.
But,as Dickie Bird said this situation got way out of hand.
It’s easy to talk with hindsight but I didn’t agree with J.Agnew’s comment;can anyone say with their hand on their heart that they wouldn’t have ‘got the hump’given the circumstances and ”technology” we are supposed to have?
I am an England supporter and mean no offence to anyone.

Comments about personalities and their prejudices - we all have them, I think you might agree - are difficult to prove and, at the same time, go to the very heart of the matter. BUT, that’s why we have to be so careful in chucking around names and blame.

Some people called me “high-handed” and “over-officious” over an umpiring controversy once - and I realised I was in a position where I was hanged for a lamb or hanged for a sheep. If I resisted the charges, I confirmed my arrogance; but if I didn’t defend myself I was acknowledging my guilt!

It may very well be true that Hair thinks that Pakistanis are more liable to cheat than white guys, or West Indians. This may be based on his experience over the years, or it may be based on the cultural differences. Where I umpire 70% of players at all levels (U-13 to National team) are subcont (predominantly Pakistani - predominantly non-professional), and it IS different. Do I think they are more liable to cheat? Well, hand on heart: no. But they are more liable to “whine”, and to make comments in Urdu (retold to me by fellow Indian and Pakistani umpires) along the lines “Auvergne wants us to lose this game so that the club he is a member of will win the League”. Like the blokes I was on the umpiring courses with who could remember day/hour/venue/umpire when Tendulkar was given out LBW when he had tickled it, but couldn’t give even one instance of when he should have been given out but was not, there is a lack of balance and equity because the sense of grievance as disempowered ex-colonialised is allowed (and encouraged by the likes of Miandad, Imran, Shariyhar Khan, etc.) to blind people to main truth, which is that mistakes even out. Shame on these stirrers! They are abusing their position of responsibility for the worst populist purposes.

Back to Hair. The ICC appoint the fellow to, what?, four Pakistan series in 15 months. What does this signify. Well, it seems reasonable to assume that they wanted this fellow who is, in their opinion, “untouchable” to root out any problems, Law 42-wise. Koertzen and Harper like a laugh and a chat, Billy is Billy, Taufel maybe (but too political - looking after No. 1?), but good old Darrell will do their dirty work for them. If he f***s up, never mind - we’ll set him afloat.

So, yes, maybe Hair was looking for trouble, but nearly everyone agrees that trouble exists. It’s just proving it according to a burden of proof which will satisfy the lawyers that is difficult.

Maybe Hindi-Urdu speakers should umpire all India/Pakistan series. But, for you Indians and Pakistanis out there, as soon as I suggest this, I feel that soem of you may be saying, “NO WAY!” I think, to follow the metaphysical drift of this thread, that a Popperian approach to discussion, one that focuses on problems and on the fecundity and benefits of problems, would help the cricketing authorities if they want to deal with the issues involved with umpires and Law 42. Sweeping stuff under the carpet, or pretending there isn’t a very different ethos/approach to cricket between Australia/England etc and India, Pakistan etc, is not going to get us anywhere.

I believe it possible that the ICC felt that Pakistan might be tampering, and therefore set the Rottweiler on them to nail them! (The world does work this way, you know!) The whole “evidence” thing is a bit of a red herring. (Shock horror!) If the umpires feel that the condition of the ball has been altered unfairly by the fielding team, then they can change it and penalise the side 5 runs.

I’m not sure if this offence should be called by the (highly emotive) word “cheating” any more than having 5 penalty runs awarded against you for talking to the batsman as he’s preparing to receive the ball. Like all Law 42 offences, 42.3 is concerned with trying to gain an unfair advantage. I feel that the demonisation of the offence of changing the condition of the ball unfairly by media and experts is regrettable. There are quite a few things that reflect on the honour of a country more than whether your cricket team’s been penalised 5 penalty runs for this.

As for your comments about forfeiting the match, Hai and Doctrove didn’t do this - Inzaman did. The umpires explained the situation and the skipper decided not to play. He forfeited the match. The evidnece for this IS very clear: he lead 14 blokes onto the field 20 minutes or so after the umpires had called Time on the match in a symbolic action, which said to those watching, “Yikes! I cocked up - but now I’m after the sympathy card”. Can’t do this in any sport…

said,I thought that dualism led to Newton and to the enlightenment and to’modern’scientific thought and the dreaded Wittgenstein.
Have I offended you in any way?
What have I omitted?
Please enlighten me.
P.S.Do you think the ‘Big Bang’theory is just another creation myth?
Perhaps someone can come up with a coherent explanation of swing.

Very clover[sic]webmaster and the Beeb bit has money people thinking about changing their minds.
Cheers Auvergne[a lot of people don't seem to be able to take criticism or accept praise].
Read the Sambit article-excellent and the Beeb one is good too.
Anyway,we are still only thinking-off on hols though.
Not entirely convinced about the ethics of the matter and I suppose the song wasn’t that good either but full marks
to Thoth for finding the original-so frustating at times.