Hair is probably a petulant man and possibly a closet bigot. I do not know
him personally and have no desire to. However, his actions in the Oval Test
have been perfectly above board. If anything, he has followed the laws of
the game to the letter. Some people here want "sensitivity" (as if an
umpire is supposed to be a psychiatrist for some overgrown brats that
populate many teams in the game), "follow the spirit of the game" (as if
the laws of the game can be disregarded at all), "look at the overall
canvas" (as if the umpire's job is to be an ICC politician), and sundry
other things that are not only not a part of an umpire's job description,
but also mostly run contrary to it.
The case is pretty cut and dried here :
1. Hair notices something is wrong with the ball that wasn't so the previous
time he saw the ball (at least 6 or 12 deliveries earlier - since he is
supposed to handle the ball each time a new over starts).
2. He awards 5 penalty runs after consulting with Doctrove and asks for the
ball to be replaced. Perfectly legal. Some people here are asking whether
he should have consulted with the fielding team, or the match referee, or
some fish in the North Sea. He is not supposed to, understand ??
This is another abiding contradiction in the stance of some people on RSC
and elsewhere - Billy Doctrove acquiesced in whatever Hair had proposed all
the way. Yet, they are yelling for Hair's head (a nice pun there). If that
is not a dead give away of the blind hatred of one umpire coming forth, I
do not know what is.
3. Pakistanis keep playing until tea like a good team under a good leader,
taking the issue in their stride. However, at tea, they decide to lodge a
protest and do not come out to field. The umpires then go in and ask the
Pakistani captain as they are required by law about whether they plan to
take the field. They receive no affirmative answer.
4. Now the umpires come back and after a while, declared the match forfeit
as Pakistanis have not come out. The match is now over. Period. Whatever
Pakistanis, ICC, rain gods, minstrels in Dublin, fishes in the sea, etc. do
after this is of absolutely no consequence to this match.
5. Pakistanis, realizing perhaps that they have scored an own goal in a
match that they could have used the new ball to win, now decide to show up.
Too late.
The questions now are :
1. Was the ball tampered ?
2. If so, who did it ?
3. How long do you want to ban the cheating bastard ?
If the answer to 1 is no, the matter is dropped. Hair and Doctrove made a
bad call. Just like a wrong LBW call.
If the answer to 2 cannot be found, then I do not know what happens
according to the laws. By logical elimination, only the fielding team and
the umpires could have possibly indulged in ball-tampering. And the
likelihood of the latter is exceedingly remote, bordering on impossible.
The answer to 3 ? The politicians at ICC will likely jump in and start
defining what degree of ball tampering is permissible (just like the 15
degree Murali rule).
It is perfectly reasonable to state that you do not like the laws of cricket
in this case. The stance that applying existing laws of cricket somehow
makes an umpire guilty of some cardinal sin is pure bullshit.
Even Shahryar Khan, the chairman of PCB, thinks that Darrel Hair is a good
umpire (implicitly agreeing with the decision perhaps ?) :
http://content-usa.cricinfo.com/engvpak/content/current/story/257372.html
"But I think our case is somewhat different. It is not the fact that Darrell
Hair is a bad umpire, Darrell Hair is a good umpire. Our team has a problem
with his attitude on the field. That attitude has upset our team more than
once. If the ICC is sensitive to countries and to boards, it will take due
cogniscence."
In other words, Mr. Khan has the following to say to the ICC :
Hair is a good umpire, probably made a good decision, but can him and let
our team get off scotfree, because we don't like him personally and can
throw a hissy fit.
Thanks for the honesty, Mr. Khan ! (He said this *after* the incidents, not
before.).
Notwithstanding the tendency of one Pakistani fan to adopt an Indian handle
on RSC (Sampath), I think Indians should ask themselves ? Aren't they glad
that the long, mostly unchallenged tradition of Pakistani ball-tampering is
finally being challenged head on ? A tradition that our teams, right from
the times of Gavaskar, have paid so dearly for. Are hypocrites like Mr.
Khan really worthy of our support ?
I do not think so.
<snip>
An excellent post.
--
WSB
If it was some other team (other than Pakistan, India, SL) had Hair
have behaved in the same manner? i don' think so.
Why can't you answer that why most of the so called human errors made
by Hair are against Pakistan? And most incorrect decisions made by an
umpire against Pakistan are by Hair? Huh.
The fact is that he knows that no one can challenge his authority, and
he abuses his authority against Asian teams.
He should remember that he is in the ground to make the teams play, but
he acts like a policeman who likes to shoot the suspects at first
sight. And he prejudices all Asians (especially Pakisanis) that they
are suspects.
Very good post. My thoughts exactly too, you've expressed them very
well.
> The questions now are :
>
> 1. Was the ball tampered ?
> 2. If so, who did it ?
> 3. How long do you want to ban the cheating bastard ?
>
> If the answer to 1 is no, the matter is dropped. Hair and Doctrove made a
> bad call. Just like a wrong LBW call.
>
The probability of two umpires being wrong at the same time is very
low.
> If the answer to 2 cannot be found, then I do not know what happens
> according to the laws. By logical elimination, only the fielding team and
> the umpires could have possibly indulged in ball-tampering. And the
> likelihood of the latter is exceedingly remote, bordering on impossible.
>
To me the 2) is the correct answer. However, my gut feeling tells me
that, 3 won't be imposed due to the lack of technicalities. They will
find an escape route in the code of conduct rule, and impose a penalty
under that.
> The answer to 3 ? The politicians at ICC will likely jump in and start
> defining what degree of ball tampering is permissible (just like the 15
> degree Murali rule).
>
I hope they don't bend the rules like they did for Murali.
You know what? If the rulemakers (MCC and ICC) don't roll back the
laws to a point in the past where the traditionally accepted but not
talked about except in whispers "sharp practices" with the ball are
decriminalized (roughing it, picking the seam, dribbling sugary
saliva, hair-oiling, etc) then I hope to high heaven that umpires
start calling this on every test team if they start looking closely at
the ball at the end of each over and suspect that funny business is
going on. And yes, as an England fan I do mean if umpires think
Flintoff et all are doctoring the ball they bloody well should call
it. Sauce for the goose and gander, etc. One way or the other this
issue is now out in the open and will have to be fixed (relaxed rules)
or every team had better suck it up and be prepared to face the music.
BTW, if umpires do decide to start enforcing the tampering rules with
vigor, I'd like to see the penalty be 10 runs. You get 5 for a helmet
obstructing play when a ball deflects off it (Sri Lanka got hit with
that this summer). Ball tampering if treated seriously should carry a
stiffer penalty.
[snip]
--
Cheers,
SDM -- a 21st century schizoid man
Systems Theory internet music project links:
soundclick <www.soundclick.com/systemstheory>
garageband <http://www.garageband.com/artist/systemstheory>
"Soundtracks For Imaginary Movies" CD released Dec 2004
"Codetalkers" CD coming very soon in 2006
NP: nothing