I feel that this decison was taken not only for the last incident of the Oval test but the so many controversies involving Hair. No other umpire in the world is so controversial. Why did everything happended with him and why was everything happended against a sub-continent country. I'm not listing all those incidents as everybody knows.
Hair deserved this....if not for this incident, then for the Murali chucking controversy. I remember that so well. Murali has a weird action. No doubt about that. But Hair no-balled him even when he was bowling leg spiners. In fact, even one of the Aussie commentator was surprised and said that its impossible to chuck while bowling leg spinners. Think Hair deserves this!
I believe justice finally prevailed. Hair is a racist, he has been baised and unjust in his decisions on the sub-continent teams. There is no place for such umpires in world cricket. Crying foul by Australian and British media clearly shows that the cricketing world is already divided between whites and non-whites. Till now Asian countries were on the receiving end, now when one of their own fell because of his own wrongdoing they are crying foul.
Pakistan are the most misbehaved players in the world. Darell Hair was right in teaching them a lesson. Its only Pakistan vs Darell Hair and not India in any way related to this.
Aussies always get away with their protests both verbal and actions.There is no Asian color to Hair's episode. Pakistan sportingly accepted the ICCI verdict and logically asked for an action against an umpire who had no proof of ball tampering before taking the harsh decision of awarding the game to England. Aussies have no case here.
Removing Hair was an excellent decision. Yes, cricket needs skilled umpires. And Hair wasn't one. An umpire needs to be tactful, diplomatic and transparent. Hair wasn't. He has incurred the wrath of many during his career - not just the "Asian bloc" as some mistakenly believe.
Umpires should be respected, but they should also have to be worthy of that respect. Cricket is moving out of the days where umpires have absolute power. We need someone to "umpire the umpires" and player feedback is one way of doing this.
Australia didn't have a word to say when Darrell arbitrarily accused Pakistan of cheating. I recall a few English commentators saying that they would have reacted in an identical fashion had Darrel Hair done this to them.
Don't Australia find it surprising that 'all of Darrell Hair's decisions' have been against India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan etc. Not one of his decisions have gone against England, NZ, SA or Australia.
As far as the Austrlian Cricket Board is concerned, the fact that Darrell Hair is an Australian is good enough reason to back him.
It is high time Austarlia understands that they can not bull-doze entire cricket world. Hair has been involved with too many vindictive decisions against Asian block and hardly aginst Australians. As a hypothetical situation- if Hariharan is involved in a similar incidence against Ponting will Australians keep silent? For long ICC was dominated by Austarlians, & English cricket. I saw yesterdays (5 Nov 06) NDTV programme featuring Imran, Sidhu, Jadeja & Modi (BCCI). Some of the points raised on ICC's were very interesting where in rules were changed to suit a perticular team. We are in democratic world. So let the majority have final say. SS
It is not that umpires from countries that voted against the resolution are not respected by the subcontinent players. Simon Taufel, Darryl Harper are highly competent people whose decisions have nver been questioned.
Inzamam was a fool not to have carried on with the game but Hair was a bigger one for spoiling the reputaion of the game. At that juncture diplomacy was needed and not mule headed obstinacy. would he have taken the same stance had Riky Ponting refused to play?
