Sports Team – Darrel Hair

The Australian cricket umpire Darrel Hair, resident in the United Kingdom is a person who seems to love controversy. He began by no-balling Sri Lanka’s ace spinner Muttiah Muralitharan seven times for ‘throwing’ in the Melbourne Test in 1995. Umpire Darrel Hair described the spinner's action as diabolical, prompting the Sri Lankans to complain to the ICC that he had brought the game into disrepute. The Spinner Murali was later cleared by the ICC using sophisticated technology. Umpire Darrel Hair also said in his autobiography that he would not hesitate to ‘no-ball’ Murali at any future matches. ICC said it was unprecedented that a serving umpire would make public comments on current players.

As if this was not enough, this year, in the fourth Test England verses Pakistan, Hair accused the Pakistani’s to have tampered with the ball and penalised them by awarding five runs to England. Pakistanis did not agree and refused to take the field after Tea resulting in the forfeiture of the Match. This is another first in the long history of Test Cricket.

While the issue was raging Umpire Darrel Hair sent an e mail on Tuesday 22nd August 2006, to Doug Cowie under the heading “The way forward” making a “non-negotiable” offer demanding five hundred thousand dollars to retire from International Umpiring. An email was leaked to the press and the motives of Umpire Hair’s decisions on the field were questioned.

ICC’s Chief Match Referee Ranjan Madugalle did not back Umpire Darrel Hair’s ruling on the ball tempering allegation and exonerated the Pakistanis from such wrong doing.

Pakistan have stated officially that they do not want Umpire Hair to officiate in any of their matches, India have asked for him not to be considered for the Champions Trophy and Sri Lanka have long held grievances against him.

However, it is very surprising Umpire Darrel Hair is yet to be taken to task by the ICC although Pakistan Cricket Chief has demanded that Umpire Darrel Hair be removed from the elite panel of Umpires. This is a fair request in the light of the controversial e mail sent by Umpire Hair to Doug Cowie.

Umpire Darrel Hair is on record to say that he will continue umpiring when both his controversial decisions had been proved to be wrong. To find out further information about sportsman, Darrel Hair log onto the Internet today