All said and done, a severe reprimand to Hair and a partial ban would have been enough to reinforce that umpires need to follow the rules and decorum of game. Sacking can affect other umpires' performance and resolution to stand firm, when players misbehave on field.
Much as I beleive Hair is not good for the game, boards voting on partisan lines on umpires is not good for the game. That he should go is fine- but the process by which he should go should not be decided by clout. India may have the financial power- but the way we use it can piss people off, and much of what we are doing is doing just that. for all our sound and fury- channels calling it One day mataram, and Pepsi - The Blue Billion vcampaign- all fizzes out when our team wins only 1 match in 3 in the Champion cup and get's knocked out. There is a huge gap between India and Australia, and of late the W. Indies too are on an upswing against India. If the Board could focus on cricket and how to ensure that in the future our system ensures we are among the top at this game (being bested at home we clearly are in the lower half as of now) it would put the financial muscle to much better use. Rather than be cry babies over "Sharad Powar being pushed" by a "rude" Aussie team, we should stop cribbing and focus on cricket- Oh and for all the comments of being "gracious hosts" by the BCCI guys and the "guests not behaving" -Our Mr Modi was not polite in raising the issue with the guests
RE:Balance
by sharath chandra on Nov 08, 2006 05:10 AM
Good point. Of course Panicker chooses to ignore the . Overall, Indians have had little or no issues with Hair, simply having LBW decisions go against you does not mean that the umpire is biased. I don't see why India has to gang up on the side of the Pakis. The least they could have done was abstain from vote.
RE:Balance
by kumar on Nov 07, 2006 07:13 PM
I think you are mixing issues. All these issues are not inter related. Hair's, bad behaviour is well known. Australians are rude and getting away with it for long (remember Mcgrath in WI series). True they are great players, but does it give them license to insult people? If Indians play bad, does it mean they have to put up with all kinds rubbish? What kind logic is that. Let us face the truth as it is.. Hair is incompetent. Australians are great players but are arrogant and ill mannered. Indian board is incompetent. And do not link all issues into one. This article is only about Hair..OK.
Meticulous cricketing proofs to support theories, however conveniently forgotting that it was Hair who gave out his own ilk at the famous 4th test at Adelaide that Aussies lost by a solitary run to the Windies, going on lose the series 2-1. Proves that we use fact to suit our theories and logic.
RE:Journalistic Liberties
by Deepu Sugathan on Nov 07, 2006 09:31 PM
I think you are too eager to prove the writer wrong. All he was saying was that Mr. Hair was not a good umpire, behaves in sort of an 'above the game' manner. The complaint was not that he was partial to a partcualar country. Further, in a wide majority of the cases, his contreversial decisions were very wrong by the rules of cricket like at the OVAL where he did not warn the Pakistani captain before penalizing. I also believe that Mr. Doctorove was equally wrong in not stopping it.
RE:Journalistic Liberties
by Ravi on Nov 08, 2006 09:21 AM
Ayon, I don't know which match you are referring to, but just because a guy does 1 "good" deed after comitting 10 "frauds", it doesn't make him a martyr or saint. As Prem Panicker said Hair has been involved in controversies right from the beginning and all of them involved subcontinent teams or South Africa. So I am just curious how come he was not involved in any such incident against England or New Zealand teams? The only thing I can conclude is that he has some racial bias. Just because he is an Umpire who knows pretty much every law there is in cricket doesn't make him "great". Remember "with great power comes great responsibility". Hence you should know when to apply the "power" and if you start applying it indiscriminately you will have to bear the consequences. Overall I feel ICC has done good by removing him from the elite panel. This will not make umpires scared, but it will make them think twice before taking any action.
This is very good article. I liked the article...and its true that the whole matter could be handled better by Hair if wanted...but he is always a contraversial figure....every 2nd nation in the cricket world has problems with him, its good that he is removed from the Elite panel....
As long as the victims are asians be it Muralidharan, Sourav Ganguly and the ilk its just ok. Its for the good of the game.
But let some of the "non-brown" skin be involved and it is all about rising asian power and so on and so forth, truly, I am raining tears controlling to stop my laughter.
Well well well.... I m not feeling bad in saying that for the first time I found Prem Panicker's article any good and significant. Applauds for Panicker.
Correctly presented the statistics of Hair's misdeeds :) World (read: world of whites) is used to accusing when the decisions r not according to what pleases them.
Quite a few good points here. However, Murali did throw the ball a couple of times. Bhajji did, too. And you might have noticed that Shoaib and a couple of other pakis consistently throw the ball when the going gets tough in match, especially the last overs, when the umpire is not looking for it. So, while Hair has had a bad precedent, I cannot think that he was ALWAYS wrong. While the western press may be biased at the moment or jealous of the fact that India should actually control the proceeds due to the maximum number of viewers and advertising money coming from here, the point is about the manner in which the impeachment was arrived at. Due to the committee not providing clean evidence of foul play on the part of Hair, it APPEARS as if the decision has been forced by considerations other than cricket.
