22 March 2008

I agree with Ranatunga

I´m always concerned when emotional players get involved in cricket administration, but I agree with Arjuna Ranatunga on the Darrell Hair issue. Either Hair needs to be treated as normal, or he needs to go, whatever the legal complications. You can´t have countries dictating who they get as their umpires, but the ICC have started down that slippery slope by removing Steve Bucknor after India complained in Australia - they now have nowhere to go when it comes to teams complaining about umpires.

Personally I hope they solve the problem by supporting umpires with technology but if they aren´t going to do that, they need to support the umpires when they inevitably make wrong decisions. They can start to put right the wrongs of the Bucknor removal by treating Hair as normal umpiring all teams. They should start by allocating him to umpire Sri Lanka - the least controversial of the 3 teams Ranatunga mentions Hair should be umpiring. The chances of that happening are virtually zero though - Hair doesn´t have long to go on his contract so if the ICC can avoid him umpiring Pakistan or India in that time then the issue will go away....

2 comments:

Viswanathan said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Viswanathan said...

I am with you on Hair.
ICC has set a wrong precedent by removing Bucknor.However, the fact remains that his umpiring standards have fallen.